Indiana woman, 21, who had sex with minor, didn't tell him she was HIV-positive sentenced to 10 years in prison
A Vigo County, Indiana, woman who was accused of having sex with a minor, not disclosing she has HIV, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
According to Fox59, 21-year-old Lisa Marie Custer, of Terre Haute, was first arrested in March 2017 after she had sex with the 15-year-old son of a friend despite knowing she was HIV positive.
Court documents pertaining to the case state she became interested in the teen after she began staying with his father and told him she wanted to have sex with him soon after. She did not tell him she was HIV positive. She only disclosed the vital information two days after she had sex with him, documents indicate.
She was charged with two counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and failure to comply with the law on reporting some communicable disease — Indiana law requires carries of AIDS, HIV, and/or Hepatitis B to warn sexual partners of their status.
Speaking about the case at the time, Rob Roberts, the Chief Deputy Prosecutor, said, "The fact still remains, that anytime you have one person that’s infected and they’re not warning others, then they’re probably not taking the necessary precautions to prevent that spread," adding that he did not want "one of those major outbreaks here in Vigo County."
The 21-year-old was freed after posting bond but found herself behind bars in Georgia a few months later. She was tracked down in a wooded area in Lee County Georgia in June 2017 and arrested following a purse snatching in an area Walmart.
Recently, Custer struck a deal with prosecutors which saw her plead guilty to one count of sexual misconduct with a minor and failure to warn of a communicable disease. A second count of sexual misconduct and an escape charge were both dismissed under the agreement.
Custer was sentenced to 10 years in prison on a count of sexual misconduct with a minor, and another 2.5 years on a count of failure to warn of her HIV status. The sentences will run concurrently and will include credit for time served.
She will reportedly be serving the sentence under the terms of purposeful incarceration.
Purposeful incarceration is a cooperative project that kicked off in 2009 that sees the Indiana Department of Correction work alongside the Indiana Court systems to see chemically addicted offenders given a chance to see their sentence modified in the scenario they complete an IDOC Therapeutic community.