In what may be a case of “when keeping it real goes wrong,” an Americus, Ga., woman is in hot water after authorities say a ploy to get even with all the men she felt had done her wrong apparently went awry.
According to the Washington Post, Brandi Yakeima Lasiter decided to take revenge on lovers who had left her brokenhearted by posting to social media that she was HIV-positive—and that she had intentionally infected all of them, too.
“I always get the last laugh,” Lasiter said in a Facebook Live video post that went viral, but has since been taken down, the Post reports. “I get real nasty and evil.”
Lasiter named not only the men but their wives and their girlfriends, too, authorities said.
But Lasiter changed her tune real fast—and said she’d made it all up—when police threatened to arrest her.
In Georgia, it’s a felony to knowingly transmit HIV, according to the Associated Press, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
And Georgia is one of 19 states that require such disclosure, a move that has stirred much debate about whether such laws serve to protect public health—or simply stigmatize and shame those living with HIV.
As the Post notes, Georgia, according to federal health officials, has a “high prevalence” of HIV, with more than 58,000 people with HIV living in the state.
Conversely, per the Post, a UCLA study
noted that between 1988 and September 2017, 571 HIV-related arrests were made in Georgia. Before 1997, HIV-related arrests in the state were rare — with 27 annually. The number doubled around 2000, with 63 HIV-related arrests that year.
Maybe folks need to be more concerned about using condoms and practicing safer sex than focusing on what someone told them?
In any case, Lasiter presented authorities with receipts—medical records showing that she did not, in fact, have HIV.
But her troubles aren’t over. Lasiter has now been charged with a misdemeanor count of making harassing communications, according to AP, and faces up to a year in jail if convicted.
Only in America Americus.