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A former Texas youth football coach was given 15 years in prison for purposely infecting the mother of one of his players with HIV.

On Monday (Dec. 31) a judge handed down the sentence to Jimmy Bernard Billingsley who pleaded guilty to assault and causing serious bodily injury after admitting to being aware of his health status since 2008.

The 42-year-old met his victim in 2009, while coaching her son’s youth football team. They twosome engaged in unprotected s-x and in 2010 the woman contracted the virus. She called police since Billingsley was her only intimate partner leading up to getting HIV. “She suspected that he had infected her with the virus after he insisted on having unprotected s-x,” the local DA’s office said.

“He would say, ‘You’ll be okay,’” the woman revealed.  “’I won’t get you pregnant. I don’t have anything. You don’t have anything to worry about.’”

After starting to “feel sick,” the woman took a blood test which revealed her status. “I just cried,” she recalled. “’I’m not going to live for a long time,’ is what I thought.”

At a hearing last week, Billingsley acknowledged having several partners since finding out that he had HIV. “The defendant’s intentional non-disclosure to numerous s-x partners was egregious, dangerous, willful and malicious. He is truly a snake in the grass,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Ross said in a statement. “His sentence brings some justice to his known victim and provides a measure of protection for so many others.”

Since being diagnosed, the woman has to take a medical cocktail of pills in attempts to stop keep her T-cell level high enough so as to not contract AIDS. “I am just so tired of going to the doctor, and so tired of taking medicine,” she explained.

Offering words of advice to other potential victims of the virus, the woman urged everyone to be cautious. “Just be careful out there. Don’t trust anybody. It’s not a game to play with . You don’t want to be in this situation.”

Billingsley’s crime mirrors that of an elderly Colombian man who was apprehended after attacking and knowingly infecting at least 50 women with HIV, the youngest of which was a 16-year-old girl.

 

Photo: NewsOne