A male prostitute who told police he had sex 70 to 80 times after being diagnosed HIV-positive last year has been sentenced to spend up to five years in prison Monday.
Richard Gutierrez, 31, was sentenced to zero to five years in the Utah State Prison with credit for time served rather than to a residential treatment program by 3rd District Court Judge Sandra Peuler."In a non-secure facility there is some treatment, but the public is not going to be protected because Mr. Gutierrez does not have the ability or wherewithal to stop prostituting himself," Peuler said.
Defense attorney Mark Moffat said Gutierrez suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and has a very low mental capacity.
Gutierrez was the first Utahn to be charged with a third-degree felony sex solicitation under a 2-year-old state AIDS law. Soliciting sex is usually a class B misdemeanor.
Gutierrez, who has a history of male prostitution, was arrested in February after allegedly agreeing to perform a $20 sex act with a police decoy.
The February incident was Gutierrez' fourth public prostitution charge since 1992. In a pre-sentence report, Gutierrez said he had prostituted himself 70 to 80 times after his 1994 diagnosis.
Moffat said Gutierrez wanted to be punished.
"It seems Richard has come to the point where he is at the opinion he should be in prison," Moffat said.
Moffat recommended Gutierrez instead enter a halfway house like the Orange Street program. But, the program turned Gutierrez down because it could not afford the expensive AZT medication he takes for his disease. The Utah State Prison, however, will pay for the medication, even though both facilities are run by the Department of Corrections.
Moffat said a long-term drug problem had plagued Gutierrez, which only slowed after his incarceration.
"Richard Gutierrez has not been this clean for this long in his adult life," Moffat said. "And for the first time in his life, now is the time we've all been waiting for to seize him and get him into treatment."
Peuler said the sentence balanced the man's need for treatment and the public's right to protection.
Gutierrez told Peuler he was trying to take responsibility for his actions.