US: Four NYPD cops received pensions for alleged HIV infection on duty

Court papers released today reveal that experts at the New York Police Department's medical and pension boards had previously decided that four NYPD cops were infected with HIV during the course of their duties.

The details were published in the New York Daily News.

According to the report, a female cop is in a Brooklyn court alleging unfair treatment by the same NYPD boards because they had previously disallowed her claim for a disability pension - they say she was not infected on duty but through sex with her ex-cop boyfriend.

He is one of four policeman that the boards ruled were infected in the line of duty.

Three of the four unidentified cops approved by the NYPD pension board were infected in the following ways, according to court papers:

- The first officer submitted to the pension board documents indicating that on June 1, 1989, he "reached into a perpetrator's underwear to retrieve drugs."

- The second cop was bitten on the hands by an HIV-positive perpetrator on May 7, 1993.

- The third sustained a cut on his left thumb from a razor blade while frisking a suspect.

No details are provided for how the fourth cop was allegedly infected, but he was retired Officer Jane Doe's ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter, the court papers state.

Since the first two dates were 1989 and 1993, I suspect that all of these alleged transmissions will have occurred prior to the implementation of Post Exposure Propylaxis (PEP) for occupational exposure, and before phylogenetic anaylsis was first used in order to attempt to show a linkage (but primarily to show that there is no linkage) between the alleged source and the newly infected individual.

One wonders how much fear and misinformation about HIV transmission through casual contact, biting, and sharp implements played a part in the boards allowing these earlier claims.

I have a strong suspicion that Office Doe will not win this case unless she can show evidence of a transmission risk that predates sex with her ex-boyfriend, and even then, the risk would have to have been mitigated with PEP. If she did not report the risk, and didn't access PEP, it's going to be an impossible case for her to win.

Four cops got HIV on job: ruling
BY JOHN MARZULLI , DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, October 2nd 2008

Four NYPD cops have contracted the deadly HIV virus in the line of duty and were granted disability pensions, the Daily News has learned.

The never-before-disclosed details are contained in court papers filed in connection with a lawsuit by a retired female cop who contends that she was infected on the job and, as a result, wants a tax-free pension.

Referred to as Jane Doe in the complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, she alleges unfair treatment by the NYPD medical and pension boards based on her gender, because only male cops have been cited for getting infected in the line of duty.

In a motion filed this week to dismiss the suit, city lawyers discussed the circumstances of a dozen cops who applied for line-of-duty disability pensions citing HIV between Nov. 30, 1999, the date the HIV statute went into effect, and August 2007.

The statute affords any police officer who may have been exposed to the bodily fluids of an infected person - and is subsequently diagnosed with HIV - the presumption that the disease was contracted in the performance of his official duties.

Three of the four unidentified cops approved by the NYPD pension board were infected in the following ways, according to court papers:

- The first officer submitted to the pension board documents indicating that on June 1, 1989, he "reached into a perpetrator's underwear to retrieve drugs."

- The second cop was bitten on the hands by an HIV-positive perpetrator on May 7, 1993.

- The third sustained a cut on his left thumb from a razor blade while frisking a suspect.

No details are provided for how the fourth cop was allegedly infected, but he was retired Officer Jane Doe's ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter, the court papers state.

Jane Doe, along with one other female officer - and the remaining six male cops - were granted ordinary disability pensions because they had not documented any possible exposures while on the job.

The city contends Jane Doe was infected through sex with her cop ex-boyfriend.

"The city rewrote the statute requiring her to 'prove' that she contracted the condition through police work," said Jane Doe's attorney, Eric Sanders.