Philippe Padieu, who was described by his own lawyer as a “modern-day Casanova,” has been sentenced by a Texas jury to 45 years in prison for knowingly inflicting six women with the AIDS virus.
Padieu, 53, was convicted on six counts to run concurrently. Notably, the counts charged aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — meaning his bodily fluids. He continued to have unprotected sex after learning that he was HIV positive in 2005.
The verdict may be worrisome for HIV positive individuals — in exposing partners to the disease. Padieu insisted that the women had multiple partners and that there was no way to trace the exposure to him. One woman who has full blown AIDS said that Padieu frequented swinger clubs and may have infected as many as 20 other women.
Texas does not have an HIV law written for such exposure cases.
“well all whores will burn in hell”
Judge,
If that’s true you will have a lot of companions…… sweating.
judge,
They really will…. I am pleased to know that….Now how is it that you came to know this for a fact….or is this just your opinion?
well all whores will burn in hell
Mancow Muller Staged Fake Waterboarding
By P.J. Gladnick)
May 30, 2009 – 09:09 ET
Erich “Mancow” Muller has gotten a lot of publicity for himself over the last few days by subjecting himself to a supposed waterboarding and then immediately declaring it to be torture. As a result, he has been hailed in the leftwing Blogosphere and appeared on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann to report on his experience. Well, now it appears that his “experience” was probably faked and did not encompass what a real waterboarding is like according to the Gawker blog. A series of e-mails between Mancow publicist, Linda Shafran, and David Kupcinet who has contacts with many veterans through his Purple Heart Association was obtained by the Gawker. Shafran was trying to get a veteran to conduct the waterboarding and when Kupcinet agreed to find one, she sent him the following e-mail:
It is going to have to look “real” but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real. Would be great if they could dress in fatigues and bring whatever is needed. We will supply the water.
In her own words, it “will be a hoax but have to look real.” Even worse, the producers of Keith Olbermann’s show were informed about the e-mails prior to the appearance of Mancow. This was their reaction as reported by the Gawker:
Regarding the emails between Safran and Kupcinet, our tipster also informed us that they were shared with Keith Olbermann’s producers prior to Mancow’s appearance on his show. We were told that they were beyond livid when they found out about them and expressed their extreme displeasure for the whole situation with Linda Shafran over the phone, but went ahead with the planned segment anyway, making no mention of the fact that they’d received advance word that the whole thing may have been staged. However, we were unable to confirm this with anyone at MSNBC.
The Gawker also contrasts the differences between Mancow’s waterboarding with that of Christopher Hitchens who was waterboarded under the correct protocol:
We’ve done a bit of research on it and also went back and watched the video of Christopher Hitchens’ waterboarding in 2008 to compare and contrast his waterboarding against Mancow’s, and we couldn’t help but notice some rather striking differences.
In the Hitchens video, everything is carried out pretty much according to universal waterboarding protocol as we’ve come to understand it. His limbs and torso are tightly bound by restraints. The platform on which he lays appears to be tilted slightly downward so that his head is positioned below his heart. His head is also completely covered and the water used looks as though it’s poured directly into his breathing passages.
In contrast, Mancow isn’t bound by restraints at all, he doesn’t appear to have his body positioned at a decline, only a portion of his face from the nose up is covered, and the water is being poured on him inappropriately.
And now it turns out that the marine who conducted the waterboarding wasn’t even qualified to do so, according to the Gawker:
“It was a marine who did it,” Muller said. “I don’t know his training. Is he a professional interrogator? I don’t think so. But he knew what to do. If I wanted to fake it, it would have lasted for six minutes—I lasted six seconds. I’m on the air, bud, I’m on the air.” Then he hung up.
So we called Klay South, the marine Mancow found at the last minute to perform the waterboarding. He says he had no idea what he was doing! To wit:
I know nothing about waterboarding. I had never done it before, I have no formal training in it, and I’ve never had it done to me. The only thing I knew was what I saw on the internet. I went to waterboarding.org and looked it up. I just did what I was told—poured the water on his face and that was it. I’m probably the last person they should have had do it. I didn’t know what I was doing.
That settles it for us! South is the founder of Veterans of Valor, a nonprofit that helps out wounded vets, and he said he agreed to the gig just to gain a donation and publicity for the organization, a noble enough reason.
According to South’s main resource, waterboarding.org, waterboarders should “restrain the interrogation subject on a board” and “incline the board about 15-20 degrees so that the feet are above the head.” South says Muller’s feet were bound, but his arms were not. And although his feet were elevated, he was laying on a flat surface.
We asked South if it seemed like Muller was faking it: “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you if he was in distress or not.”
UPDATE: Mancow called us back to say that even though his waterboarder didn’t know what he was doing, and his publicist called the whole thing a “hoax,” it wasn’t supposed to be a REALLY real waterboarding to begin with. Just the radio stunt kind! “Of course I wasn’t a radical terrorist,” he said. “Of course it was simulated. To compare what I went through to what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed went through—of course it was not the same. I’m sure it was worse for them.”
Last night, both Keith Olbermann and Mancow tried to wriggle out of the hoax controversy which was also covered by the Gawker:
Olbermann brought Muller—with his wife and daughter wandering around aimlessly and confusingly behind him in the studio—back to his show tonight to rebut our stories. He said that “the only actual evidence” that Muller’s supposed waterboarding was not, in fact, a waterboarding was “the use of the word ‘hoax’ in an e-mail.” Well, we’d say that’s something, considering the e-mail in question was from Muller’s publicist, Linda Shafran, who wrote outright that the event was indeed a hoax. Muller explained it away, as he did earlier today, by claiming that he would not have been permitted to do the stunt by his bosses if he let people know that he was actually planning on going through with it. He wasn’t clear, but the implication was that Shafran wasn’t in the loop—she thought it would be a bullshit stunt: “I didn’t think it was a big deal, she didn’t think it was a big deal. We were going to prove that it was nothing.”
That Mancow would stage a hoax event is no surprise. Mancow has a long history of perpetrating such frauds.
Obama Lifts Ban on Lobbyists!
Back to Business as Usual
May 30, 2009 – 10:54
Roll Call is reporting that during the typical Friday afternoon document dump — a practice used to hide actions that might prove somewhat embarrassing to the White House — the administration quietly announced that restrictions on lobbying (ballyhooed about during the late campaign) have been lifted.
Bush Administration: Right After All! Again.
May 30, 2009
The Obama administration insists it has no obligation to provide access to a top secret document in a [warrantless] wiretapping case, setting up a showdown next week with the judge who ordered it released. …
The judge has ordered department lawyers to appear before his court Wednesday to make the case why he should not award damages to the now-defunct Oregon chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. That group is challenging the wiretapping program.
In its response, the department said that in this case “disclosure of classified information–even under protective order–would create intolerable risks to national security.”
The filing said President Barack Obama has authorized access to classified information on a “need-to-know” basis and argued that the government “cannot be sanctioned for its determination that plaintiffs do not have a need to know classified information.”
It’s one more in a long series of instances in which the Obama administration has backtracked on its campaign promises by keeping Bush administration anti-terror policies in place.
Isn’t it about time for Barack Obama to issue an apology to former President Bush?
This guys was a bad seed. He preyed on the social food chain in Plano. He took advantage of these women who were lonely and neglected because their Husbands wanted to make a better living for them. This was the reward the Husbands got for the Married Women infidelity. I know this is cynical but this is an aspect that got played in a paper I read. The man was infected and infected the woman who in turn infected her spouse. The right of any lawsuit should rest with the innocent spouse. Not that these creep did not get what he deserved. A lot more people were destroyed because of him.
Off of my soapbox.
Unrelated issue Mike S. thanks.
That raises a forensics question or two.
Can they trace the HIV or AIDS virus to him on each case?
Or do they only need to prove that he had it, knew it, but had unprotected sex anyway … and as a proximate cause his partner contracted it later?
Former Federal Nothing:
This is a criminal conviction, not a “lawsuit.” This is not about receiving damages for someone’s conduct. It’s about imposing criminal liability for harming another. If he knowingly exposed women to HIV, he needs to be responsible for his conduct that is harmful to individuals and society. I do worry about sending the message to the public that the state will help when sex is unprotected. But the seriousness of the crime seems to outweigh that factor.
I read all three of the original source stories for this to find out one piece of information. That information was did he know he had HIV, when he had unprotected sex and did he inform his partners. Apparently he knew in 2005 and yet had unprotected sex with six women after that point, while failing to disclose his condition to them. Given that I find myself in agreement for perhaps the first time with a Texas legal decision. To me there is no doubt that his actions were a tort. Beyond that though, he knowingly put these women’s lives in danger and those of any of their potential future partners. This was an act of malicious recklessness that deserves severe punishment.
Anyone with an STD, who has sex with another should be bound to reveal their condition beforehand. I’m not into regulating people’s sex lives, but I am into punishing narcissistic creeps who use sex to inflict harm on others.
So where do the lawsuits stop? I mean, obviously this guy contracted HIV from someone. Who does he sue? And then what about those suit defendants? Etc. Does this mean everyone that has AIDS and has sex is going to be thrown in jail (if these lawsuits are carried out to their logical conclusion)? Is that what we want as a society?