13 women say man didn’t tell them he was HIV positive

MOSCOW, Idaho – An additional seven women have testified that a North Idaho man failed to tell them he had tested positive for HIV before having consensual sex with them, bringing to 13 the number of women who have come forward.

Kanay Mubita, 31, a Zambian national, faces 13 counts of violating a state law that requires a person who tests positive for HIV – the virus that causes AIDS – to notify sexual partners.

The seven women testified Wednesday at a preliminary hearing, and Magistrate William Hamlett bound Mubita over to 2nd District Court to face felony charges. Mubita is being held in the Latah County Jail on $20,000 bond. He faces up to 15 years and a $5,000 fine on each of the 13 counts.

Latah County Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Evans told the Lewiston Tribune that if Mubita pleads innocent to the new charges, she’ll move to have all 13 counts tried at the same time.

He pleaded innocent to the six previous counts and is scheduled for trial March 27. Evans said none of the women has so far tested positive for HIV.

“Some of them have to go back for repeat tests,” Evans told the Associated Press on Thursday. “It depends on how recently they had their encounter with him.”

Evans said two other counts against Mubita were dismissed because witnesses were not available to testify, but that investigators are still looking into other counts involving additional women.

The women who testified Wednesday said they met Mubita through friends or at Moscow taverns.

“He was basically telling me he loved me, wanted to marry me and have children with me,” one of the women testified.

At an arraignment concerning the previous six counts earlier this month, an official with the North Central District Health Department testified that Mubita had known of his HIV-positive status since 2002.

At Wednesday’s hearing one woman testified that when she asked Mubita about a friend’s claim that he had tested positive, Mubita “would throw a fit and say, ‘I’m not positive. I don’t have this crap,’ and stuff like that.”

The women identified themselves in court, but are not named in court records.