Mikhy Brochez, who is accused of leaking confidential information of 14,2000 individuals living with HIV from Singapore’s HIV Registry, appeared in court in Kentucky, US to face trespassing charges. He told the judge that he believes the Singapore government may be interfering in the case.
Mr Brochez arrived without an attorney at a Clark Country District Court in Winchester, Kentucky where he has been arrested in December and charged with third-degree criminal trespassing for refusing to leave his mother’s house.
At the request of the arresting officer, Judge Charles Hardin delayed the case until Mar 4, noting that Brochez had pleaded not guilty and the charges carried no possibility of jail time. The judge also told Brochez he did not know anything about his allegation of interference.
Before the hearing, Brochez did not directly address questions from a reporter about whether or not he leaked information from Singapore’s HIV Registry. In a recently published Vice New articles, Brochez said that he merely shared the data which has already been exposed with government and media sources.
He also apparently repeated claims he made on Monday on his Facebook page – which has subsequently been removed by the platform – that he only contracted HIV after being gang-raped while imprisoned in Singapore. Singapore authorities have denied his allegations, calling them ‘blatantly false’.
When asked about the people who were hurt by the leak, he said “I was thrown in prison for something I didn’t do. And I was held down and gang-raped by your government. And you want to talk to me about someone’s feelings? Do you have any idea what I’m going through right now?”
In Court, Brochez told the judge that his mother wanted to drop the case and that it was causing hardship by interfering with his ability to work. Judge Hardin countered that his mother did not have the right to dismiss the case before proceeding to continue it for two weeks.
Brochez’s mother, Teresa King, has a house near Winchester. That was where Brochez was arrested in December after refusing to leave. Three month prior, the police has responded to a similar call and Brochez was warned to stay away.
“This deputy informed the suspect about the past warning and the suspect was instructed to leave numerous times but the suspect kept wanting to ask about the property that T. King had of his and wanting to talk to the sheriff,” according to an arrest report.
Brochez declined to answer any questions after the hearing. He was accompanied by the sheriff’s deputies outside, climbing into a white Mercedes SUV and driven away.
