The Thrill Seeker
Halloween 1994: Robert Willner, MD, self-injects with HIV positive blood to prove the virus doesn’t cause AIDS.
April 1995: Willner dies of an unrelated heart attack.

The S&M Defendant
May 1995: Marilyn Tan is acquitted of poking photographer Conrad Boland with an HIV-spiked syringe during S&M play.
1997: Boland is stabbed with a knife—by a woman who, oddly, looks a lot like Tan. (He lives.)

The AIDS Robin Hood
January 2002: John Loan (real name) is arrested for embezzling $3.4 mil, partly to pay his now-deceased boyfriend’s AIDS-care bills.
2004: Fresh out of prison, Loan plans a social-work career to help women of color fight HIV.

The Condom Chewer
February 2002: At a California eatery, Laila Sultan discovers a condom in her clam chowder after demanding it be reheated.
January 2004: Sultan wins an undisclosed settlement in this most recent of her two dining- and two driving-related lawsuits.

The Big Spender
August 2002: Dan Pallotta, who steered the AIDSRide bicycle fundraisers, hits the brakes amid profiteering accusations.
2004: Pallotta now chases cash for cancer.