A North Vancouver man who had unprotected sex with multiple women while keeping his HIVpositive status a secret has been sent to jail for two years.
Judge Carol Baird Ellan of the North Vancouver provincial court handed the sentence to Adam Thomas Rollo, 30, on Thursday.
Rollo was sentenced after pleading guilty to two charges of aggravated sexual assault.
One of Rollo's victims got pregnant and had a child during their relationship. Rollo lied to her when asked directly about his HIV status, said Crown counsel Nicole Gregoire. He also kept silent despite the risk of their baby contracting the virus.
"He essentially gambled with their health and their lives and that of his child," said the judge.
Neither the women nor the baby contracted the disease.
Rollo was first diagnosed with HIV in 2003 but chose to ignore it and failed to seek treatment for the disease.
He started a relationship with the first victim in October 2008. When the woman asked Rollo directly if he had HIV, he told her "not that I'm aware of."
That relationship broke off toward the end of that year, and Rollo started seeing the second woman soon after. Their relationship lasted a few weeks.
Three months later, Rollo reconciled with the first victim, and in June 2009 she announced she was pregnant. Rollo stayed silent about his HIV status even though a doctor explained to both of them that HIV could be passed to a child during birth and through breastfeeding. The woman gave birth to a son in January 2010.
A doctor eventually exposed Rollo's secret and the woman went to police. The second woman only found out the truth after North Vancouver RCMP circulated Rollo's photo to media. Three other women also came forward with accusations, but no charges resulted from those cases.
In handing down her sentence, Baird Ellan noted sentences in cases where victims did not become infected with HIV were usually lower than in cases where infection did occur.
She added it was impossible to say what risk Rollo had actually posed to his victims, noting medical experts said they could not determine what the level of virus was in his system at that time.
Rollo's defence lawyer Herb Chambers told the judge Rollo was "both shocked and in a state of denial" when he got the HIV diagnosis at age 22 and chose not to deal with it.
The judge placed Rollo on the sex offender registry and on three years' probation following his jail term. While he is on probation he must tell any prospective sexual partners his HIV status before becoming intimate, the judge ordered. He must also not have sex until his probation officer has contacted any potential partners.
