A part-time Muskogee High School cheer coach and mentor in a Tulsa youth outreach program is ordered to stand trial for second degree rape and transmittingHIV to a 15-year-old girl.
Elton Howland Rhoades, 24, also known as Keaton Zane Paige, is charged in Tulsa County District Court with three counts each of second degree rape andexposing others to HIV/AIDS.
The girl told authorities that she met Rhoades at the youth outreach program where he worked as a mentor, and that she had known him for about two yearsbefore they became involved in a sexual relationship in March. She said that the sexual relationship between the two was consensual, but that the manhad told her that he did not have any sexually transmitted diseases. She also says that the defendant knew she was only 15 years old. The age of consentin Oklahoma is 16.
Two months after she became sexually involved with Rhoades, the girl says, she tested positive for HIV.
Reports say that when confronted, the man initially denied knowing that he was HIV positive. However, investigators say they turned up medical recordsindicating that the defendant was told he was HIV positive two years earlier. Rhoades allegedly then admitted that he had received a positive HIV test,but that he "didn't believe it" because he was not showing any symptoms of AIDS.
Rhoades was arrested on June 12 and booked into the Tulsa County Jail, where he remains in lieu of $100,000 bond for each statutory rape complaint and$50,000 bond for each count of transmitting HIV.
Because the age of consent in Oklahoma is 16, no one aged 15 or younger can provide legal consent to sex with a person over the age of 18. Often knownas statutory rape, second degree rape is a Level 3 felony sex crime punishable by 1 to 15 years in prison (21 O.S. � 1116)and lifetime sex offender registration.
Under 21 O.S. � 1192.1, it is a felonyfor someone who knows he or she is HIV-positive or has developed AIDS to engage in conduct that would be likely to transmit the virus or the diseaseto another person:
A. It shall be unlawful for any person knowing that he or she has Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) or is a carrier of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and with intent to infect another, to engage in conduct reasonably likely to result in the transfer of the person's own blood, bodily fluids containing visible blood, semen, or vaginal secretions into the bloodstream of another, or through the skin or other membranes of another person, except during in utero transmission of blood or bodily fluids, and:
1. the other person did not consent to the transfer of blood, bodily fluids containing blood, semen, or vaginal secretions; or
2. the other person consented to the transfer but at the time of giving consent had not been informed by the person that the person transferring such blood or fluids had AIDS or was a carrier of HIV.
The penalty for knowingly intending to transfer Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a maximum of 5 years in the state penitentiary.
