New Delhi : An Italian man has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for infecting more than 30 women with the HIV virus, after having deliberately having unprotected sex with them.
Valentino Talluto, a 33-year-old accountant, seduced dozens of women via social networks for a decade before his arrest in November 2015. Police believe he had sex with at least 53 women during that time, passing on the virus to 32 of them.
The male partners of three of the women subsequently contracted the potentially fatal illness, as did the eight-month-old infant of a fourth woman.
The women who had asked him to wear a condom said he told them he was allergic or had just been tested for HIV.
Many of the victims were students, some mothers. The youngest was 14 at the beginning of their relationship, the oldest around 40.
Each described the horrors of HIV, including the stigma, which distanced even family members, and the ordeal of treatment.
Some women stayed with him for months after discovering they had the virus. In the end, it Talluto’s chronic cheating – he juggled up to six relationships at the same time – that drove them away.
Prosecutor Elena Neri told the court last month “Talluto has never cooperated, he has made false statements, he has always denied any responsibility, even in the face of the evidence. His actions were intended to sow death.”
The defence painted a picture of a young man eager for affection who never knew his father and whose mother – a drug addict who was HIV positive – died when he was just four years old.
“He did not intentionally seek to transmit the virus,” his lawyer Maurizio Barca said, insisting that Talluto used condoms “most of the time” and only had sex without them a few times after being “caught in the heat of the action”.
He claimed it was impossible to prove it was his client and not other partners who had infected the women. The strain of the virus they share with Talluto is the most widespread in Europe.\
After months of silence, Talluto finally spoke out at the end of September, expressing regret for what had happened, but claiming he did not realise the consequences of his actions.
