By Alicia Cruz
The Black Urban Times
Nushawn Williams was titled as a “one-man HIV epidemic” after his reckless sexual encounters landed the small, rural community of southern Chautauqua County, New York (population 141,000) on the map in 1997 after a Health official announced that he knowingly infected at least 14 women and girls with the virus that causes AIDS.
When several girls in and around this small community began testing positive for HIV, it caught the eye of county health commissioner, Richard Berke. By October 1997 Berke realized the connection between the women and girls was far from a fluke, but more like a nightmare. The women and girls all shared one commonality: each had sex with a man named Nushawn Williams.
Williams, of Brooklyn was arrested and pleaded guilty in 1998 to one count of reckless endangerment and two counts of statutory rape with a 13-year-old girl and another underage girl resulting in a four to 12 year prison sentence.
He was set to be released last week after serving 12 years (the maximum), but remains incarcerated at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, N.Y. after a three-hour psychiatric evaluation with Dr. Jacob Haden of the state Office of Mental Health diagnosed him as suffering from antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy which predispose him to commit further sexually related offenses.
In his report, Dr. Haden wrote, "(Williams) has extreme variants of two related personality disorders that affect his emotional, cognitive and behavioral functioning. In his case, these conditions consist of a callous and predatory orientation toward other people, little concern for the consequences of his actions, impulsivity, deceitfulness and a pervasive disregard for social norms. His lack of regard for the consequences of his behavior and predatory orientation, whereby he manipulates others for his personal gratification, creates a disposition for multiple types of offending. He is prone to further sexual contact with underage individuals because of deficits in his emotional capacity to understand why this is wrong."
Haden's report further concluded that Williams is, in fact, aware of the serious consequences his return to such reckless conduct would prompt, but simply does not care.
The findings motivated Attorney General Cuomo's legal bid to have William's release blocked under the state’s civil-confinement law. William's convictions classified him as a sex offender, which meant the psychiatric evaluation was mandatory before he could be set free.
Per section 10 of the state mental health law, which was revised along with sex offender sentencing guidelines in April 2007, a sex offender like Williams may be detained for no longer than 60 days pending a civil confinement hearing.
Civil confinement for Williams means incarceration at a state psychiatric facility to address the findings of his evaluation. It is now up to a jury to decide if Williams should be free to leave prison or if he should remain in the custody of the state to ensure he does not re-offend.
Williams prison record is marred by 21 infractions ranging from drug smuggling, drug possession, communicating threats, throwing urine at other inmates and gang activity. The Department of Corrections confirmed that Williams was a member of the street gang the Bloods which apparently began during the time he lived at the Albany Housing projects in Brooklyn during the mid-1990s.
The New York Daily News reported that Williams spent approximately 943 days in disciplinary confinement for his violent offenses. An unidentified inmate told officials that when released, Williams planned to infect women more women with HIV through sexual intercourse and infected needles.
Williams reportedly learned he was HIV positive when he was 19 years-old in September 1996, but he claimed he believed that health officials had lied to him when they diagnosed him as HIV positive. During a 1999 television interview, he claimed he didn't know he had the disease and when told that he gave his victims death sentences, he replied, "Yeah, I gave them a death sentence, but it wasn't knowingly."
Williams now known as Shyteek Johnson, was known by many aliases during his reign of wanton sexual mayhem to include "the Face." He was the quintessential sexual predator of the 90s as he preyed upon the drug addicted and those suffering severe deficiencies in their self-esteem.
He once bragged that he had unprotected sex with anywhere from 200 to 300 women knowing he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS. However, officials have only accounted for 43 women in upstate New York and an additional 28 in New York City. His encounters with these young girls and women, who ranged in age from 13 to 26, left many infected and pregnant.
Of that 43, officials say 13 contracted the HIV virus, six have since given birth to children with two of those children having been born with the HIV virus. Two of Williams' children born in Chautauqua County are also HIV positive.
From countless news reports to interviews with Brooklyn detectives and child protection agency workers, it seems as if Williams' life began a downward spiral from as early as age 9. In school, he was assigned to special education classes.
He was the eldest of his mother, Denise Williams, three children. He spent much of his formidable years in and out of foster care after his mother became hooked on drugs.
Records show that the Williams family made contact with child protection services from 1981 up through 1996, the year Williams was diagnosed with HIV. One of the Williams children was placed in foster care and the other was formally adopted.
Williams stayed with his grandmother, Eleanor Johnson McRae until 1993, at the age of 16, when she petitioned Family Court to adjudicate Williams as PINS or a Person in need of Supervision.
A year later, in 1994, Williams was arrested and charged with the murder of Frederick Douglas, 34, of Queens. Williams spent a year in the juvenile detention facility at Rikers Island before being acquitted of that murder.
It was then that Williams moved to Jamestown, New York to live with relatives. While there, Williams moved from house to house, selling drugs from each while living with different girls, one who was the mother of an infant child -- who was not known to be the child of Williams -- appeared to be getting beat by Williams quite regularly according to a neighbor.
In February 1997, Williams was shot during gang related robbery. He survived and returned to New York City, this time the borough he called home was the Bronx.
Reports show Williams lived everywhere from a garage to the streets as he made his way from Williamsbridge to Baychester in the Bronx.
Neighbors there recalled Williams as crack dealer who nursed a burgeoning crack addiction and traded sex for drugs with prostitutes and young girls until his arrest for selling drugs to an undercover police officer in September 1997 -- a month before the Chautauqua County health commissioner announced his HIV status.
Williams, now 33, will remain in custody until the disposition of his civil hearing.
Read the story of one of the young women infected and scarred by Nushawn Williams: "Jamestown and the Story of 'Nushawn's Girls'
Media Outlets must credit The Black Urban Times
www.theblackurbantimes.com
twitter.com/thebutmsdotcom
facebook.com/theblackurbantimes
The Black Urban Times
Nushawn Williams was titled as a “one-man HIV epidemic” after his reckless sexual encounters landed the small, rural community of southern Chautauqua County, New York (population 141,000) on the map in 1997 after a Health official announced that he knowingly infected at least 14 women and girls with the virus that causes AIDS.
When several girls in and around this small community began testing positive for HIV, it caught the eye of county health commissioner, Richard Berke. By October 1997 Berke realized the connection between the women and girls was far from a fluke, but more like a nightmare. The women and girls all shared one commonality: each had sex with a man named Nushawn Williams.
Williams, of Brooklyn was arrested and pleaded guilty in 1998 to one count of reckless endangerment and two counts of statutory rape with a 13-year-old girl and another underage girl resulting in a four to 12 year prison sentence.
He was set to be released last week after serving 12 years (the maximum), but remains incarcerated at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, N.Y. after a three-hour psychiatric evaluation with Dr. Jacob Haden of the state Office of Mental Health diagnosed him as suffering from antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy which predispose him to commit further sexually related offenses.
In his report, Dr. Haden wrote, "(Williams) has extreme variants of two related personality disorders that affect his emotional, cognitive and behavioral functioning. In his case, these conditions consist of a callous and predatory orientation toward other people, little concern for the consequences of his actions, impulsivity, deceitfulness and a pervasive disregard for social norms. His lack of regard for the consequences of his behavior and predatory orientation, whereby he manipulates others for his personal gratification, creates a disposition for multiple types of offending. He is prone to further sexual contact with underage individuals because of deficits in his emotional capacity to understand why this is wrong."
Haden's report further concluded that Williams is, in fact, aware of the serious consequences his return to such reckless conduct would prompt, but simply does not care.
The findings motivated Attorney General Cuomo's legal bid to have William's release blocked under the state’s civil-confinement law. William's convictions classified him as a sex offender, which meant the psychiatric evaluation was mandatory before he could be set free.
Per section 10 of the state mental health law, which was revised along with sex offender sentencing guidelines in April 2007, a sex offender like Williams may be detained for no longer than 60 days pending a civil confinement hearing.
Civil confinement for Williams means incarceration at a state psychiatric facility to address the findings of his evaluation. It is now up to a jury to decide if Williams should be free to leave prison or if he should remain in the custody of the state to ensure he does not re-offend.
Williams prison record is marred by 21 infractions ranging from drug smuggling, drug possession, communicating threats, throwing urine at other inmates and gang activity. The Department of Corrections confirmed that Williams was a member of the street gang the Bloods which apparently began during the time he lived at the Albany Housing projects in Brooklyn during the mid-1990s.
The New York Daily News reported that Williams spent approximately 943 days in disciplinary confinement for his violent offenses. An unidentified inmate told officials that when released, Williams planned to infect women more women with HIV through sexual intercourse and infected needles.
Williams reportedly learned he was HIV positive when he was 19 years-old in September 1996, but he claimed he believed that health officials had lied to him when they diagnosed him as HIV positive. During a 1999 television interview, he claimed he didn't know he had the disease and when told that he gave his victims death sentences, he replied, "Yeah, I gave them a death sentence, but it wasn't knowingly."
Williams now known as Shyteek Johnson, was known by many aliases during his reign of wanton sexual mayhem to include "the Face." He was the quintessential sexual predator of the 90s as he preyed upon the drug addicted and those suffering severe deficiencies in their self-esteem.
He once bragged that he had unprotected sex with anywhere from 200 to 300 women knowing he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS. However, officials have only accounted for 43 women in upstate New York and an additional 28 in New York City. His encounters with these young girls and women, who ranged in age from 13 to 26, left many infected and pregnant.
Of that 43, officials say 13 contracted the HIV virus, six have since given birth to children with two of those children having been born with the HIV virus. Two of Williams' children born in Chautauqua County are also HIV positive.
From countless news reports to interviews with Brooklyn detectives and child protection agency workers, it seems as if Williams' life began a downward spiral from as early as age 9. In school, he was assigned to special education classes.
He was the eldest of his mother, Denise Williams, three children. He spent much of his formidable years in and out of foster care after his mother became hooked on drugs.
Records show that the Williams family made contact with child protection services from 1981 up through 1996, the year Williams was diagnosed with HIV. One of the Williams children was placed in foster care and the other was formally adopted.
Williams stayed with his grandmother, Eleanor Johnson McRae until 1993, at the age of 16, when she petitioned Family Court to adjudicate Williams as PINS or a Person in need of Supervision.
A year later, in 1994, Williams was arrested and charged with the murder of Frederick Douglas, 34, of Queens. Williams spent a year in the juvenile detention facility at Rikers Island before being acquitted of that murder.
It was then that Williams moved to Jamestown, New York to live with relatives. While there, Williams moved from house to house, selling drugs from each while living with different girls, one who was the mother of an infant child -- who was not known to be the child of Williams -- appeared to be getting beat by Williams quite regularly according to a neighbor.
In February 1997, Williams was shot during gang related robbery. He survived and returned to New York City, this time the borough he called home was the Bronx.
Reports show Williams lived everywhere from a garage to the streets as he made his way from Williamsbridge to Baychester in the Bronx.
Neighbors there recalled Williams as crack dealer who nursed a burgeoning crack addiction and traded sex for drugs with prostitutes and young girls until his arrest for selling drugs to an undercover police officer in September 1997 -- a month before the Chautauqua County health commissioner announced his HIV status.
Williams, now 33, will remain in custody until the disposition of his civil hearing.
Read the story of one of the young women infected and scarred by Nushawn Williams: "Jamestown and the Story of 'Nushawn's Girls'
Media Outlets must credit The Black Urban Times
www.theblackurbantimes.com
twitter.com/thebutmsdotcom
facebook.com/theblackurbantimes
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