In Maryland, a former school aide and track coach has been indicted on several charges of sexual assault involving 42 young and teenage boys, all while being HIV positive.
Initially, the Charles County State Attorney's Office handed 30-year-old Carlos Deangelo Bell with a 119-count indictment in late July. Now, it's up to 206 counts.
The state attorney's office claimed Bell assaulted 42 boys between the ages of 11 to 17 years old.
Of the 42 victims, officials have been able to identify 28 juveniles, while the remaining 14 are still unidentified.
Bell is accused of committing the lude acts at his home and in Benjamin Stoddert Middle School, which was not the school where he worked as an aide and coach. Authorities believe Bell assaulted students between May of 2015 and June of 2017, and may have used other locations.
Investigators uncovered the mass-scale assault after a concerned parent checked her child's cell phone and found texts in from Bell in November, according to Fox5. The mother notified police, who investigated Bell's home and found electronic devices loaded with child pornography.
Bell was removed from his positions at La Plata High School in late December.
Thankfully, while Bell was HIV-positive at the time, state attorney's office has not found any evidence of any of the identified victims testing positive for HIV. If that changes, Bell could face several additional criminal charges counts thanks to Maryland's very strict laws on knowingly exposing others to HIV -- unlike the rather backwards laws decriminalizing the act such as the one recently passed in California.
Charges against Bell currently include 22 counts of sexual abuse of a minor, 19 counts of second-degree sex offense, seven counts of third-degree sex offense, 97 counts of child pornography, and 19 counts of second-degree sex offenses.
If Bell is convicted of certain crimes, the State Attorney's office said they will pursue a life sentence. He is currently being held without bond and is set to appear in court on January 8.
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