CLINTON – He taunted his ex-lover with text messages and voice mail, saying he’d given her the HIV virus when they were intimate. He lied, according to Anderson County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Mark Lucas. So the criminal exposure to HIV charge against Jose Alex Perez of Oak Ridge is being dismissed, Lucas stated in a news release Monday.
by BOB FOWLER Knoxville News Sentinel
Jose Alex Perez (Photo by Anderson County Sheriff's Office)
Instead, Perez, 35, is being charged with two counts of felony harassment. Another two charges of misdemeanor harassment are being leveled against Perez for allegedly making phone threats against two people while he was in jail.
Police said Perez stabbed 27-year-old Joey L. Quilliams to death March 23 as Quilliams was beating and robbing him. No charges were filed. Authorities labeled the incident justifiable homicide.
Less than a week later, Perez was texting a woman with whom he had earlier been intimate and who had rejected his request for more sex.
Perez’s text message to the woman stated he contracted the HIV virus years earlier while in prison “and hoped that the victim enjoyed receiving HIV from him,” according to an arrest warrant.
Other text messages followed, along with hostile voice mail, the warrant states.
According to Lucas, investigators obtained a search warrant for a blood sample from Perez. A test for HIV, which causes the chronic, life-threatening condition AIDS, came back negative.
Perez, arrested April 29 on the criminal exposure to HIV charge, remains in the Anderson County Jail.