Tuesday, Feb. 20, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Nine months pregnant and infected with HIV, a 30-year-old convicted prostitute is behind bars again on a felony charge of soliciting an undercover Metro Police vice detective.
Brenda Jo Villagomez had negotiated a deal to trade straight sex and oral sex for $40 after getting into the detective's car about 11 p.m. Sunday outside her home in the Gold Dust Apartments at 711 Carson St., said vice Lt. Carlos Cordeiro.
The detective stopped the car at 10th Street and Charleston Boulevard where the arrest was made.
"It turns your stomach to see an individual willing to put a citizen at risk of contracting AIDS, as well as her unborn child," Cordeiro said.
Villagomez's case was especially disturbing, Cordeiro said, because he just saw the woman in early December during a jail visit to deliver word that her mandatory blood test had shown her positive for HIV.
"She was the first person I'd ever notified, so I was a little uncomfortable about it," Cordeiro said. "But I was a bit surprised because she took the news very casually."
Villagomez was then serving time after being convicted of two counts of soliciting prostitution. She had been remanded to the custody of the Las Vegas Detention Center on Dec. 20 for the misdemeanor charges, authorities said.
Villagomez is the third HIV-positive prostitute arrested by undercover Metro vice officers in 12 days, Cordeiro said.
Lynn Jerome Bridges, a 41-year-old local transvestite, was arrested Feb. 11 after allegedly offering to trade oral sex for $30 at Pinto and Desert lanes.
Melody Faith Thompson, 28, was arrested Feb. 5 in the 4100 block of South Paradise Road after allegedly offering to provide oral sex to an undercover vice officer for $20, police said.
The charges Thompson, Bridges and Villagomez face are felonies because of the deadly infection they carry. If convicted, they each could face a 20-year prison sentence.
People arrested on prostitution charges are mandated by law to undergo a blood test. Metro Police are required to deliver positive HIV test results in person. The vice section has 211 HIV-infected local prostitutes on file.
"We see pregnant female prostitutes, but not as far along as this woman," Cordeiro said of Villagomez. "The combination of being nine months pregnant with HIV and just being released from jail is very disturbing. And they picked her up right outside her home."
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