The New York Times - August 9, 2005
Corey Kilgannon; William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting for this article.

Jury selection was to begin today in the trial of the man, Robert Murray, 32, but he abruptly accepted a plea deal, in which he agreed to admit his guilt in five counts of second-degree attempted murder, in exchange for a 13-year prison sentence.

His case had attracted comparison in some quarters to the film "Silence of the Lambs," in which the character Hannibal Lecter is so dangerous that he wears a restrictive suit. In court appearances, Mr. Murray had repeatedly threatened to attack people around him, including judges and his own lawyers, said his most recent lawyer, Michael A. Rodi.

As a result, even though Mr. Murray was found fit for trial by court psychiatrists, he was ordered to wear a shoulder-length spit mask, ankle shackles, handcuffs and hand mitts made from orange foam.

Mr. Rodi said his client was warned by Justice William A. Wetzel in court yesterday that he would have to wear this during his trial.

"It started to dawn on him, 'How am I going to get a fair trial wearing this mask?"' Mr. Rodi said. "He said, 'I don't want to go through with this,' and decided to take what they were offering. I think it would be hard to get a fair and impartial jury trying the case with him in the Hannibal Lecter suit and spit mask."

Each of Mr. Murray's victims was tested repeatedly over a year for H.I.V., but none contracted it, Mr. Rodi said.

Two victims who might have ingested Mr. Murray's blood underwent an intense regimen of anti-H.I.V. medication.

One of them, Sgt. Margaret Timlin, 35, now of the department's Internal Affairs Bureau, said in an interview last night that she helped arrest Mr. Murray in 2003 on the prostitution charge. He attacked her while she tried to handcuff him in the holding cell.

"He spit in my face, eyes and mouth and then said, 'I have H.I.V., and I hope you get it,"' she said. "It was absolutely horrible. Your whole future flashes before your eyes."

The lead prosecutor on the case, an assistant district attorney, Matthew Bassiur, said that Mr. Murray was scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 7.

"This was a very serious case involving many victims," he told Justice Wetzel in court. "Some of these victims lived in fear they had contracted H.I.V."

The trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan stemmed from charges that Mr. Murray spit saliva and blood into the faces of four police detectives trying to process him at the 25th Precinct station house in Harlem after he was arrested on April 8, 2003, on charges of promoting prostitution.

He was also accused of biting a large chunk of skin out of the arm of an orderly on June 7, 2004, at a psychiatric hospital where he was being held. After each attack, prosecutors said, Mr. Murray screamed that he was infected with H.I.V. and that the victims would contract the disease and die.

Mr. Rodi, who was appointed by the court to defend Mr. Murray, added: "I was his fourth lawyer and he didn't even want me. He came after me a couple times in the courtroom, but he was always wearing the mitts."

He said that Mr. Murray, if convicted, would have faced consecutive sentences of 25 years for each of the five charges. Mr. Rodi said that Mr. Murray had no immediate family or friends, had been orphaned at a young age and had lived most of his life in orphanages, shelters and jails.

"He's in this situation because of a breakdown by the mental health system," Mr. Rodi said. "I mean, who's crazier than this guy? He was institutionalized by age 8. He shouldn't have been out in the streets."

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