A Memphis minister is facing up to six years in prison for exposing his former girlfriend to HIV.
Rodney Carr, former pastor of Fellowship of Believers in Christ Church, has been convicted of criminal exposure to HIV, according to the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office.
Carr allegedly infected an unidentified 35-year-old woman with HIV between 2009 and 2010, several years after he tested positive for the virus in 2005. The woman told jurors Carr never informed her that he was HIV-positive during their relationship. She tested positive for HIV after their relationship ended.
Carr will be sentenced on October 10th. He faces three to six years in prison.
Those infected with HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, can have the disease for years before developing symptoms. For some, unfortunately, when they do discover they’ve contracted the virus, it has progressed to its advanced and more life-threatening form: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
More than 635,000 people in the United States have died from the virus; an estimated 36 million people have died globally since the first cases were reported in 1981, according to the World Health Organization.