By Peter Berton
TORONTO – A man whose ex-wife infected him with HIV has lost his bid to hold an Ontario gentlemen’s club and government authorities liable for his condition.
Percy Whiteman, 37, filed a $33-million lawsuit against Toronto’s famed Zanzibar Tavern, Canada’s immigration department, provincial authorities and a doctor who approved his ex-wife’s work visa, claiming the defendants’ collective and individual recklessness resulted in his HIV diagnosis. Whiteman never would have met and married a stripper he met at Zanzibar, he claimed, if everyone along the immigration and employment chain had been more conscientious.
According to court records, Suwalee “Ricky” Iamkhong, a native of Thailand who immigrated to Canada in 1995, was diagnosed with HIV while working as a stripper and escort in Hong Kong prior to her immigration. Court documents also note she failed to mention her health status at the time of immigration, and later failed to inform Whiteman of her HIV-positive status or that her previous husband had died of AIDS.
Whiteman and Iamkhong married in 1997 and had unprotected sex until their marriage ended in 2004, after Iamkhong’s disease devolved into AIDS and Whiteman received an HIV-positive diagnosis.
Iamkhong, now 43, subsequently was convicted of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and sentenced to three years in prison. She served two years before authorities deported her to Thailand in 2010, based in part on the criminal conviction.
Justice Carole Brown, in deciding the lawsuit at Ontario Superior Court, threw out Whiteman’s claims. In her decision, Brown said Whiteman’s arguments lacked legal merit.
“It is extremely unfortunate, indeed tragic, that Mr. Percy Whiteman contracted HIV from his wife … who he sponsored for permanent residency in Canada,” Brown wrote. “I have concluded none of the defendants are responsible for Whiteman’s contraction of HIV. Mr. Whiteman was the author of his own misfortune.”
Zanzibar owner Allen Cooper was blunter in his assessment.
“He married her and chose to have unprotected sex with her while he knew she was from Thailand and had been a prostitute,” Cooper told the Toronto Sun newspaper. “It wasn’t our fault.”
Whiteman’s lawyer said he is considering an appeal.
