An HIV-infected man has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for deliberately passing on the virus to over 30 women after luring his victims via online platforms to have unprotected sex with him.
On Friday, the Court of Appeal of Rome found the 33-year-old accountant, Valentino Talluto, guilty of spreading the HIV virus to 32 women after deliberately deceiving his victims into having unprotected sex.
After 11 hours of deliberations following the trial, in which the prosecution asked for a life sentence, the court found Talluto guilty of “grievous and incurable bodily harm,” and sentenced him to 24 years behind bars.
Talluto, who in September showed some remorse to his victims, had no reaction when the sentence was read out Friday. His victims, however, started weeping.
“It’s our little big win. Justice is done. Now we are united by joy and ready to move forward,”said one.
Despite knowing that he was HIV-positive since 2006, the accountant, using the pseudonym ‘Hearty Style,’ roamed social networks and dating sites to find his prey.
Throughout the course of the trial, his victims, aged between 14 at the beginning of their relationship to around 40-years-old, described how Talluto lied about being in love with them to persuade them to have unprotected sex.
When the women asked the accountant to use a condom, he told them he was allergic to latex and lied that he was HIV free. The court also heard evidence that some of the women were truly in love with Talluto and even stayed with him for months after discovering they were sick.
That, however, did not stop the man from sleeping with other women. It is reported that Talluto had up to six relationships at the same time.
Overall, the man slept with at least 53 women until his arrest in 2015. Some of the victims, however, passed on the HIV virus to their partners, so that at the end of the investigation the number of infected people rose to 57, which included three males and one baby.