Charge for hepatitis-positive spitter downgraded from attempted murder

PALMER — A man who allegedly knew he had hepatitis when he spit in the face of an emergency room nurse has been charged with assault.

According to Alaska State Troopers, Andre L. LaFrance, 29, of Wasilla, was initially admitted to the emergency room at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center for a drug overdose on Sunday. He was treated and released, but was back again the next day for another drug overdose.

This time doctors told him he hadn’t overdosed and he was going to be discharged.

“Andre then claimed to be suicidal and wanted to hurt or kill himself,” Trooper Ryan Mattingley says in an affidavit filed in LaFrance’s court case.

Hospital staff decided LaFrance needed to be put in restraints until troopers arrived.

“Andre stated he would spit on the staff if placed in restraints,” Mattingley wrote. “When placed in restraints, Andre spit in (the nurse’s) face.”

Mattingley wrote that LaFrance had Hepatitis C and knew it. He noted that hospital staff confirmed the diagnosis and that a law enforcement database contained notes that LaFrance had told other troopers he had the disease. Mattingley mentioned that LaFrance might also have “other blood-borne diseases common to IV drug abuse.”

The nurse LaFrance spit on told the trooper that Hepatitis C is incurable and causes renal failure and death. She told the trooper she was worried she might have caught it through the mucus membranes in her face.

The Centers for Disease Control reports Hepatitis C is usually transmitted through one person’s blood mixing with another person’s.

The most common way to catch it is through sharing needles. Most online Hepatitis C fact sheets list the risk of transmission through saliva as low.

LaFrance was initially charged with attempted murder for spitting on the nurse. Whether medical information about the communicability of hepatitis played into his decision is unclear from court records, but Palmer District Court Judge John Wolfe later chose to reduce that murder charge to assault. LaFrance is also charged with harassment.

Troopers say he was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $50,000 bail.

Wolfe reduced that to $2,500 and ordered that LaFrance find someone to watch over him before he can be released. As of Thursday afternoon he was still listed as an inmate at Mat-Su Pre-Trial.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.