Associated Presss - Friday October 16, 1998
Janet McConnaughey, Associated Press Writer

He'd promise he would leave his wife and marry her. Once, he allegedly threatened to keep her from graduating from medical school. Another time, she said he threatened to make public photographs he'd taken of her having sex, putting them up at the hospital where she worked as an intensive care nurse.

In 1994, two weeks after her final announcement that the 10-year relationship was over, the gastroenterologist showed up at her home and gave her a shot of what he said was vitamin B-12.

Authorities say he was actually trying to kill her with an injection of AIDS-tainted blood. She now has the AIDS-causing virus, HIV.

Schmidt, 52, has been charged with attempted second-degree murder, which carries a punishment of up to life in prison. The trial began Thursday and was to resume today.

"He stabbed her with a loaded syringe," prosecutor Keith Stutes said during opening statements.

Mrs. Allen, 34, told jurors that even though she had told him their affair was over for good, she left her door unlocked: Schmidt had told her he was coming over.

"I was in bed, with our son. I was half asleep. His arrival woke me up," said Mrs. Allen, who has remarried.

She testified that Schmidt, who had given her a series of vitamin B-12 shots during the previous month, told her he was going to give her another. She told him she didn't want it, she said.

"He came over to the bed. I thought he was spending the night. Before I knew it, he had given me the shot," she said. "It hurt. It hurt. All the way down my arm. I thought he had hit a nerve was my first thought."

Then he was gone.

About five weeks later, Mrs. Allen saw an eye doctor who recognized possible symptoms of HIV infection but told Schmidt rather than his patient, Stutes said. Three months later, a second doctor also recognized the symptoms, ordered tests and told Mrs. Allen.

Mrs. Allen had sex with other men during her off-again, on-again relationship with Schmidt, but they all checked clean of HIV, Stutes said. Defense lawyer Michael Fawer argued that the case cannot be proved.

"To this minute, nobody has heard both sides of the story," Fawer told the jury. "You will see what a difference it makes."

Stutes said the blood allegedly used to infect Mrs. Allen was taken from two patients.

Fawer told jurors that Mrs. Allen in 1994 contracted hepatitis C, which can also be transmitted sexually. He said whoever gave Mrs. Allen hepatitis likely gave her the AIDS virus.
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