Arizona court rules disclosure of HIV status not criminal harassment of ex

PHOENIX (CN) — The Arizona Court of Appeals vacated a protection order against a man who made a social media post disclosing his own HIV status and the identity of his former partner, ruling that state harassment laws do not preempt First Amendment free speech rights.

The court found that Sean Villa-Kennedy’s 2025 Facebook post contained no factual inaccuracies and consequently cannot be considered defamation for the purpose of a protection order. In a six-page opinion posted Wednesday afternoon, it vacated the two-year order that prohibited Villa-Kennedy from being near Shelby Gregorwicz or owning a firearm.

“Legislatures are free to punish nonspeech conduct, as well as narrow categories of constitutionally unprotected speech, such as true threats,” Judge Veronika Fabian wrote. “But they cannot label speech that mentally distresses people ‘stalking’ or ‘harassment’ and then punish all such speech.”

Gregorwicz, who had a child with Villa-Kennedy in 2024, posted a message to a Facebook group of more than 600 people under the name “Shelby Starbuck” in May 2025. The message contained a photo of an “HIV Negative” patch with the written caption, “I’m sure you’d be surprised which of your friends can’t wear it, but hey let’s be transparent.”

Days later, Villa-Kennedy posted to the same group under his real name, disclosing that he is HIV positive but, despite his sexual relationship with “Shelby Starbuck,” neither she nor their child contracted the disease.

“For Shelby to take it up on herself to use this deeply sensitive and personal information in some way to hurt me should be self-evident of her character,” Villa-Kennedy wrote. “Beyond that. I am now forced to put myself out there to combat any further rumors or misinformation being told.”

Villa-Kennedy refused to remove the post at Gregorwicz’s request, explaining in a text that he made the post in response to her post.

A Maricopa County judge granted Gregorwicz’s request for a protective order after an ex parte hearing, finding that Villa-Kennedy’s social media post constituted harassment. The court held that the First Amendment did not preclude the order of protection because “defamation is not ‘protected speech’ under the First Amendment.”

But for speech to be defamation, it must be false, the Court of Appeals said.

“The superior court cited Milkovich v. Lorain to conclude that Father’s post was not protected by the First Amendment because it was a statement of opinion implying a false assertion of fact,” Fabian wrote. “However, Father’s post was neither false nor was it a statement of opinion implying a false assertion of fact. Instead, Father stated the truth — that he had HIV and that Mother and the parties’ daughter did not.

Because Villa-Kennedy’s words were pure speech, the government can punish that speech only within “narrowly limited classes of speech,” including incitement of violence, obscenity, defamation, speech integral to criminal conduct, fighting words and true threats.

“Mother argues speech that harasses a protected party is one of the classes of speech not protected by the First Amendment,” Fabian wrote. “There is, however, no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment.”

Arizona harassment laws therefore do not apply to Villa-Kennedy’s free speech, the court of appeals concluded.

“Because Father’s post was protected by the First Amendment, the superior court erred in finding it constituted criminal harassment and by issuing an order of protection,” Fabian wrote.

The court also denied Gregorwicz’s motion for sanctions.

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