Fugitive lawyer says he didn’t knowingly infect women with HIV

Angie Wagner

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 9:53 a.m.

An Arkansas lawyer said Wednesday that he never knowingly infected anyone with the virus that causes AIDS.

Timothy Wayne Tillman also said he saw nothing wrong with sleeping with women after being diagnosed with the HIV virus.

"Why would you not?" Tillman asked.

Tillman's comments came in a jailhouse interview with The Associated Press shortly after he waived extradition to return to Arkansas and face two charges that he exposed another person to the HIV virus.

"Everybody I've been with knew I was HIV-positive," Tillman said from the Clark County Detention Center. He also said he always used condoms.

Tillman, 35, of Sherwood, Ark., was arrested at the Sunharbor Star Hotel on Saturday after the FBI received information he was there.

Tillman also faces a felony absconding charge and a federal charge of leaving a state to avoid prosecution.

After the first charge of exposing another person was filed in September, he pleaded innocent and was placed under house arrest pending the outcome of his case. The second charge was filed after he fled.

About Sept. 29, he removed an electronic monitor from his ankle and left his parents' home, police said. The FBI got involved when police found out he left the state.

Tillman said he and his ex-wife had gotten back together last year, but had a falling-out this year, and she filed for sole custody of their 4-year-old daughter.

Tillman said when he was still seeing his ex-wife, he had met another woman and began a sexual relationship with her. He said he told her about his health status. Tillman said the woman, his girlfriend, joined him in Las Vegas and the two won a little money gambling.

He would not say if the girlfriend fled Arkansas with him, only that they were together in Las Vegas.

"This girl's standing behind me," he said.

One of the charges stems from a sexual encounter Tillman had with a woman he met in September 1998, he said. Tillman said he told the woman he had HIV and she consented to having sexual intercourse with him. Tillman said he used protection.

"She knew this situation. She slept with me anyway," he said.

Tillman said the woman was a mutual friend of his and his ex-wife's. He said his ex-wife went to the police after finding out the two had slept together.

Attempts to reach Tillman's ex-wife for comment were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Tillman said he fled Little Rock in September because "my whole world just got turned upside down. I don't think you think very clearly in situations like that.

"I really didn't think - probably a bad case of judgment."

North Little Rock police detective Jeffery Witonski said Pulaski County sheriff's deputies could bring him back as soon as the end of the week.