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Judge Allegedly Recorded Saying He Feared Contracting HIV From Defendant

November 3rd, 2017 • Health & Medicine • 2 minute read
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Author Sara E. Teller

Judge Allegedly Recorded Saying He Feared Contracting HIV From Defendant

Kaushal Niroula, a convicted murderer representing himself in court, and his co-defendant Daniel Garcia, have alleged the Judge David Downing of Riverside County, California, stated of Niroula during jury selection in the 2012 trial “Lord knows where his tongue has been”.  Niroula is homosexual and HIV-positive. The man said the judge indicated he feared contracting HIV from envelopes containing Niroula’s pro se motions because Niroula had sealed them with his saliva.Records show Downing’s microphone was turned off when the comment was made regarding contracting HIV because the court was on a scheduled break, but Garcia made a secret recording on his laptop.  The recordings were confiscated by the court and have been sealed for a period of five years.  A court clerk stated that Downing planned to deny all of the defendant’s motions in the case.

Judge Allegedly Recorded Saying He Feared Contracting HIV From DefendantLeft to right, Kaushal Niroula and Daniel Garcia, Image Courtesy of Riverside County Sheriff's Department

Downing also stated, “In my heart, I feel I was fair and impartial to both of them. If a new trial is granted to one of them, or both of them, or none of them, the evidence still hasn’t changed.”He continued, “They stole everything that victim had—including his shoes.  They took his life property, they took his house. It was a gross crime. It was horrible.”Court records show the judge, who worked for twenty-five years as a prosecutor before taking the bench in 2006, was confronted twice while in court regarding the matter and didn’t outwardly deny making the comments either time.Downing was also a judge on a controversial case regarding a sex sting, in which Palm Springs police officers were criticized in the media for targeting gay men. Despite substantial evidence of discrimination, the judge let the charges stand and the prosecution continue.

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Judge's secretly recorded HIV insult could undo Palm Springs killers' convictionsJudge is accused of saying he feared catching HIV from pro se defendant's motions
Sara E. Teller

About Sara E. Teller

Sara is a credited freelance writer, editor, contributor, and essayist, as well as a novelist and poet with nearly twenty years of experience. A seasoned publishing professional, she's worked for newspapers, magazines and book publishers in content digitization, editorial, acquisitions and intellectual property. Sara has been an invited speaker at a Careers in Publishing & Authorship event at Michigan State University and a Reading and Writing Instructor at Sylvan Learning Center. She has an MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, graduating with a 4.2/4.0 GPA. She is also a member of Chi Sigma Iota and a 2020 recipient of the Donald D. Davis scholarship recognizing social responsibility. Sara is certified in children's book writing, HTML coding and social media marketing. Her fifth book, PTSD: Healing from the Inside Out, was released in September 2019 and is available on Amazon. You can find her others books there, too, including Narcissistic Abuse: A Survival Guide, released in December 2017.

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