Gay Man found Not Guilty in Case of Not disclosing HIV Status
Gay supporter Elliott Youden has been found not guilty of aggravated sexual assault.
Youden, 33, had been accused of failing to declare his HIV positive status before his July 2010 sexual encounter with a Carleton University engineering student.
The aggravated sexual assault case against Ottawa gay activist Elliott Youden is a “he said, he said” scenario that hangs on the credibility of the two men involved, defense lawyer Ian Carter told an Ottawa judge Tuesday.
Youden, 33, denies failing to declare his HIV positive status before his July 2010 sexual encounter with a Carleton University engineering student — an alleged failing that led to the assault charge.
The complainant, short of money and desperate for cash, met Youden on the Gay411 website and claims the two arranged to meet so the student could massage Youden for a fee.
According to the student, the fee was renegotiated when the massage turned sexual.
Youden says there was no mention of money changing hands until the sex had ended and the student demanded $500 and threatened “consequences” if he didn’t pay.
After persuading the student that he needed to find an ATM to get the money, Youden slipped away from him on Elgin Street.
The complainant, an adult whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said he had no intention of engaging in the sexual encounter that ensued at Youden’s apartment, and while he admitted to posting a profile of himself on Gay411 he said he only wanted to find friendship.
Youden, who testified that Gay411 is known in the gay community as the place where men go to find sexual partners, claimed that in the ensuing messages between the two he declared his HIV-positive status.
The website does not retain exchanges between its subscribers so no written record exists.
The student alleges that Youden didn’t declare his HIV status even though they had various types of consensual sex five times during the afternoon and that Youden used a condom only once.
Youden said they had sex twice and that he used a condom both times.
Defence counsel Carter told Ontario Superior Court Justice Monique Metivier that the student’s version of events makes no sense and he “is not very forthright.
“Gay411 is about sex,” he said. “All the comments are about sexuality. The whole site is about sexual encounters.”
The student, who had no qualifications or training as a masseur, had arrived at Youden’s apartment with no massage oil but did bring condoms, noted Carter.
In his testimony, the student said he had a “game plan” to leave the apartment if the encounter turned sexual — a claim Carter said was a fiction.
“It is ludicrous (to suggest) that he is going there with no expectation of sex,” he said.
The student, who is not HIV positive, had also testified that he had removed his shirt almost as soon as he arrived at Youden’s apartment but had only done so because he was feeling the July heat.
Carter said that was “one of the strangest explanations I’ve heard in a courtroom.”
Crown prosecutor David Elhadad disagreed with Carter’s characterization of the student complainant and said he had been forthright during his evidence, and it made no sense that he would have sex with a stranger he knew was HIV positive.
The complainant told police that Youden had written him through the Gay411 website and apologized for not paying him for the encounter.
The website’s policy of deleting messages means there is no evidence that Youden wrote that note.
Justice Metivier will rule on Wednesday.
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