Career
The incident occurred on February 6, 1992 in Street Joseph"s Hospital West, in Lake Saint Louis, Missouri. Stewart"s son, who was 11 months old at the time, was being treated in hospital for asthma and pneumonia when he was infected with the virus. The boy was diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in 1996.
On April 22, 1998, Stewart was charged with first-degree assault.
The county prosecutor stated that this was because first-degree assault results in a longer sentence than an attempted murder conviction. Prosecutors stated that Stewart was a phlebotomist who had daily access to blood, and Stewart"s co-workers testified that Stewart had previously made threats to harm people using contaminated blood when he was angry.
The motive behind the crime was Stewart"s desire to avoid paying child support to the boy"s mother. A Missouri jury found Stewart guilty of first-degree assault on December 6, 1998.
Stewart"s attorney, Joe Murphy, said that "My client has maintained all along that he is innocent" and also claimed that "Mom made an allegation and everyone ran with lieutenant"
On January 9, 1999, Stewart was sentenced to life imprisonment at Saint Charles County Circuit Court.
Judge Ellsworth Cundiff said that the maximum sentence was inadequate, and told Stewart "injecting a child with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus virus really puts you in the same category as the worst war criminal" and "when God finally calls you, you are going to burn in hell from here to eternity."
Stewart was eligible for parole in 2011.
