Absence of Texas HIV predator law causes victim to go public

A Fort Worth woman who says her ex-husband knowingly infected her with HIV has gone public with her story. 

Brett Shipp, Mark Smith 

____________________________________________________________________________________ 

News 8 Investigates

Mandy Cole Mobley of Fort Worth vividly recalls when her doctor brought her dreadful news.

“The doctor came in with tears in her eyes, and said 'I have to tell you that you are HIV positive,' and I fell apart,” she said.

Most troubling for her: She said the person who infected her was her husband. She believes he knowingly infected her – and two other women.
At least 35 states have specific criminal laws against knowingly infecting others with HIV, through sexual contact or needle sharing. But Texas lacks such legislation.

 Mandy Mobley, 42, said she is on a mission to change the law.

“I’ve always known this: that deep down inside that this is something that I want to do,” she said. “This is my passion. This is my life’s purpose.”

Since becoming infected in the late 1990s, she said her life has become a game of survival, dominated by a daily regimen of prescription pills and the prospect of her mortality.

"There’s days that I go to swallow my medicine and it’s like my throat just closes up, like I don’t want to swallow it,” she said. “But I know I have to stay alive.... and every pill is a reminder of what he did to me.”

She is talking about 42-year-old Reginald Mobley of Fort Worth. After infecting Mandy during a three-year-marriage, Reginald moved on.

Another woman, who declined to be identified, said Reginald Mobley infected her as well. Like Mandy Mobley, this former partner said she was HIV-free before she met Reginald in 2006.

“I was terrified and I was scared, I thought I was going to die,” the woman told News 8.

 She said she tried to fight back by contacting Fort Worth police to report a crime. She said police had no interest in taking her complaint.

“That person told me that I basically had no case, that there was no way for me to prove that I did not knowingly have sex with him, knowing that he was positive, that I could not prove the case,” she said.

Without a specific HIV predator law, Texas prosecutors have had to become creative.

In 2009, Collin County prosecutors found a way to prosecute Philippe Padieu. According to prosecutors, Padieu knowingly infected at least 10 women with the HIV virus.

Padieu was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Former Collin County Asst. District Attorney Curtis Howard, who co-prosecuted the Padieu case, said although Texas has no specific law, his office was determined to see that justice was done.

 “There was no template,” Howard recalls. “We were able to make it up as we went along and use resources that we had, and we had a lot of cooperation, which was important in this case.”While the Padieu case established aggravated assault as an acceptable charge in Texas criminal courts, the burden of proof can be complex. And depending on the circumstances, the three-year statute of limitations for aggravated assault may block the pursuit of justice.

“It is up to the prosecutor to interpret the law,” said Cory Session, policy director for the Innocence Project of Texas. “You could be charged, but most likely you won’t be charged in the state of Texas if you knowingly infect someone with HIV.”

Session is a family friend of Mandy Mobley, and said he will work with her to lobby Texas lawmakers next year to adopt legislation to make it easier to get predators hiding their HIV status off the streets.

“This is one that is a matter of life and death,” Session said.

Court records indicate another of Reginald Mobley’s known partners was infected with HIV in the early 2000s. The female partner became “HIV positive” a “couple years ago,” he said in a 2003 handwritten, signed note.

In that note, written to then-Tarrant County District Judge Sharon Wilson, Reginald Mobley asked for leniency after facing possible revocation of his probation for domestic violence.

Reginald Mobley  

“…the initial shock is over,” Reginald Mobley wrote in the note, which is part of the public court file. “But we never really recovered from this. Yes it did come from me and I feel I ruined her life.”

That woman developed AIDS and died in 2010, according to her family members. Her family did not want her identified.


News 8 Investigative Reporter Brett Shipp spoke twice with Reginald Mobley by phone. In the interviews, Reginald declined to go on camera.

Reginald Mobley told Shipp he has no idea how many partners he has infected over the years. Reginald said that a medical condition has left him unable to have sex the past 10 years.
Reginald also said he cannot recall writing the 2003 note to the court.

Mandy Mobley said she fears Reginald has had sexual contact with other partners. She believes he remains free to infect others.

Mandy Mobley filed a report in March with Fort Worth police. She said she was told that the department could not pursue aggravated assault charges against her former husband because the statute of limitations had expired.

Fort Worth police declined to talk to News 8 about the investigation.

Mandy Mobley said it took her years to gather the courage to speak out.

“I decided that it was time to tell my story,” Mobley said. “Looking back the only thing I regret was not going forward and pressing charges because I possibly could have saved lives.”

Article from WFAA8 (ABC)