Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Tuesday, October 13, 1998
Prosecutors say Dr. Richard Schmidt injected 34-year-old Janice Trahan Allen with the AIDS virus in August 1994 when she tried to break off their 10-year affair because the 52-year-old gastroenterologist refused to divorce his wife.
Schmidt was indicted in July 1996 on a charge of attempted second- degree murder after Trahan Allen claimed he injected her with blood from an HIV-positive patient, telling her it was a vitamin B-12 shot.
Trahan tested HIV positive a few months later.
Allen says she became pregnant by Schmidt at least four times and had at least three abortions. She says she had Schmidt's child in 1991 and he has not acknowledged paternity, although he has helped support the child.
The affair began in 1984 when Schmidt opened his practice in Lafayette, the same year Allen divorced her first husband. She was remarried in 1996.
If convicted, Schmidt faces up to 50 years in prison.
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