Thread: ME-Jail time cut for pregnant (HIV Positive) illegal alien

Judge had lengthened sentence due to HIV-positive diagnosis

By Judy Harrison
BDN Staff

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY BRIDGET BROWNQuinta Layin Tuleh, 28 of Cameroon and her defense attorney Matthew Erickson of Brewer leave the Federal Building in Bangor Monday, June 15, after Tuleh was released on bail while her appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending in Boston. Tuleh, who is pregnant and HIV-positive, initially was sentenced to 238 days in federal prison for having false documents.

BANGOR, Maine — A pregnant, HIV-positive African woman will give birth in a Portland hospital rather than a federal prison after a U.S. District judge on Monday ordered that she be released on personal recognizance bail while her appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending in Boston.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock last month sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh, 28, of Cameroon to 238 days in prison — twice as long as the recommended sentence of 114 days — for having false documents.

Tuleh did not address Woodcock during the hour-long hearing. But she appeared to be elated as she left the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building with her attorney, Matthew Erickson of Bangor, and Jennifer Putnam, director of clinical services at the Frannie Peabody Center in Portland.

The mother-to-be declined to speak to a reporter and hid from a photographer behind a pillar after her picture was snapped.

“We’re delighted by the judge’s decision,â€

Great, so the American tax payers can pay for her health care as well as risk the possibility of exposure to HIV.

Why wasn't the lady deported immediately and why is the judge legislating from the bench? The lady is obviously an HIV infected illegal alien. She should have been turned over to ICE for deportation. Hmmm........and we wonder why our medical insurance premiums are so high.

Empathy should have no place in a court of law!

Originally Posted by MW

Why wasn't the lady deported immediately and why is the judge legislating from the bench? The lady is obviously an HIV infected illegal alien. She should have been turned over to ICE for deportation. Hmmm........and we wonder why our medical insurance premiums are so high.

Not only that, but doesn't HIV take a while to "show up"? Doesn't her pregnancy show that she has been having unprotected sex with at least one man? Taking the chance of spreading her eventually fatal disease around to any man she has unprotected sex with, and any woman he then has unprotected sex with, and any baby hese women may have before learning they are now HIV+ and the men they have unprotected sex with, etc etc etc. Instead of being all concerned about her, maybe the judge should have made sure the prison would give her the antivirals to prevent HIV in the baby she is carrying, and then find out who she had unsafe sex with, to see if she should be charged with some crime like, I don't know, maybe attempted murder?