May 3, 2002

AIDS activists' charges dismissed

by Tanya Pampalone

A local judge dismissed 27 misdemeanor and felony counts against controversial AIDS activists Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli on a technicality Thursday.

The two men were accused of criminal conspiracy, stalking and making criminal threats to employees of the San Francisco Chronicle and the Department of Public Health.

Pasquarelli still faces two felonies and three misdemeanors on similar charges in a related case involving University of California San Francisco employees.

A procedural blip due to court overcrowding gave Judge Kent Grunewald reason to dismiss all charges.

The original judge who ruled on the preliminary hearing, Judge Perker Meeks, Jr., was reassigned to another trial, causing a violation of procedure and delaying the case while the activists were in jail, said Pasquarelli's attorney Mark Vermeulen.

The district attorney has refiled the charges and a new date will be set in court today, he said. In addition to starting from scratch with a trial, Assistant District Attorney Machaela Hoctor, who handled the case until Thursday, is transferring, to another department. A new DA will be assigned to the case.

Vermeulen said this will bet he last chance for prosecutors to prove their case.

"If they suffer another dismissal, it's gone," he said.

The DA's office did not the calls by press time.

The renegade activists, who are despised by many local AIDS activists because of their in-your-face tactics, were released from jail in February, after spending 72 days in San Francisco County Jail.

Pasquarelli - a member of ACT UP San Francisco, the group that believes HIV is not the cause of AIDS - is currently in the hospital being treated for fungal meningitis. [Editor's note: Mr Pasquarelli is out of hospital, recuperating and feeling much better]

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Email: TPampalone@sfexaminer.com