HURON, S.D. — For years, AIDS wasn't much more than a big-city problem to people in this farming town on the windswept plains of South Dakota. But the fear finally struck home last week with the arrest of Nikko Briteramos at SiTanka Huron University.
The 18-year-old basketball player from Chicago became the first person charged under a South Dakota law that makes it illegal to knowingly expose someone to the AIDS virus through unprotected sex.
Health officials have been reconstructing the chain of sex partners and have tested more than 200 people for the virus in and around this town of 12,000. So far, three other people have tested positive.
"I think it's going to have people scared a little bit, more apt to think about what they're doing before they do it," said Eddie Ingleby, a junior from Huron. "You don't really think about that stuff until it actually happens, and now it's hit home pretty hard, I think."
Briteramos was discovered to be infected with the AIDS virus when he tried to give blood in March. He gave authorities a list of at least 10 women with whom he had unprotected sex in recent months. From there, health officials followed the chain of sex partners.
His lawyer, Mary Keller, said her client is baffled by the charges. He could get up to 45 years in prison if convicted on all three counts. He pleaded not guilty Thursday and remained in jail, unable to come up with $10,000 bail. A trial date of July 24 was set.
"He is not a viral-terrorist," said Briteramos' father, Disraeli Briteramos. "HIV already existed in this community, and he contracted it here."
On Wednesday, a judge issued a gag order barring lawyers and law enforcement officials from talking about the case.
Huron, meanwhile, was not the only South Dakota town dealing with HIV worries: In a case prosecutors say has no connection to Briteramos, two men from the town of Aberdeen were arrested and charged with intentionally exposing sex partners to the virus.
Mark McNeary, Brown County state's attorney, said Wednesday that James Lee Woods, 41, was charged with four counts of HIV exposure involving three other men. William Kenneth Jenigen, 35, who lived with Woods, was charged with six counts involving three victims.
Before last month, there had only been six confirmed HIV cases in the past 17 years in Huron's Beadle County. South Dakota has the second-lowest HIV rate in the nation, just 1.1 cases per 100,000 people. In 2001, only 22 cases were reported in the state.
Officials said they may never know the source of the outbreak.
"Hopefully, we've reached the bulk of people who feel they may have been at risk," said Doneen Hollingsworth, the state's health secretary.
Health officials went to the dorm last week to talk to Briteramos about his sexual partners. He was arrested later that day.