Man accused of exposing woman to HIV, Little Rock police say

Eric Gardner
Eric Gardner

An Arkansas man has been arrested on accusations he knowingly exposed a woman to HIV.

Police in Little Rock say officers began investigating in July after being called to a residence in the 1300 block of South Louisiana Street. A woman there told authorities that Eric Gardner struck her and grabbed her throat.

The woman, listed in a police report as Gardner's girlfriend, then added that she had found a pill in her car earlier that summer, which she later identified as an antiviral medication used to treat HIV. After visiting a doctor, she received a letter “advising her to urgently respond to her primary care physician's office in reference to ‘abnormalities’ found in her blood test.”

The woman told officers she had performed "numerous sexual acts" with Gardner and was "unsure if they were all with protection," officers wrote in the report.

When officers took Gardner into custody on a third-degree domestic battery charge, he requested a bag containing other medications for HIV, the report said. It noted that Gardner made an apparent reference to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act while telling officers he couldn't "acknowledge if he had HIV."

Gardner was arrested on Friday.

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