Teacher sentenced for not revealing HIV

A former teacher from South Carolina has been charged with three counts first-degree criminal sexual conduct.  The judge also ordered the teacher, Joel L. Bedenbaugh, to register as a sex offender.

Bedenbaugh was sentenced to six years in prison for not telling his ex-wife, to whom he was married for five years, that he had HIV.  This exposed her to possible infection.  Instead, he told her that the medicine that he took was for a blood disease.  She remains uninfected.

It is illegal to knowingly engage in sexual intercourse with another person without first informing them of an HIV infection.

In 2006, Bedenbaugh was convicted for  inappropriate contact with a 13-year-old girl in November 2006.  More recently, in 2008, he was investigated for  an alleged sexual assault on a juvenile in 2008.  This brought about attention to his medical history, which indicated that he had HIV.

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