COUNTYWIDE : High Court Rejects AIDS Assault Case

The California Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of a Santa Barbara man facing assault charges for allegedly infecting a Ventura County woman and her baby with the AIDS virus.

David Scott Crother, 45, was indicted in January, 1991, on 15 counts of assault with a deadly weapon--one for each sexual liaison he allegedly had with the unidentified woman without telling her that he carried the AIDS virus.

Crother is the first person in California to be charged with assault for allegedly spreading the AIDS virus through sex.

Crother’s attorney took the case to a state appeals court and then the Supreme Court, arguing that a Ventura County Superior Court judge denied Crother his constitutional right to a preliminary hearing.

In September, the high court decided to consider Crother’s case with other cases challenging provisions of voter-approved Proposition 115, which allows prosecutors to bring cases to trial by grand jury indictment rather than by a preliminary hearing before a judge.

But March 12, the Supreme Court returned the case without a hearing to the 2nd District Court of Appeal. The high court cited its ruling in another case that it is not unconstitutional to deny defendants a preliminary hearing after they have been indicted.

Ventura County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent J. O’Neill said he expects the appeals court to finalize its ruling and return the case for trial in Ventura County Superior Court, where a judge originally denied Crother a preliminary hearing.

Crother’s attorney, Robert Sanger, said that once the case returns to Superior Court, he will argue that the assault charges do not fit his client’s acts.