FBI Wants You to Know Omar Mateen Wasn't HIV-Positive

A gay man who told a Univision anchor he had a sexual relationship with Omar Mateen is again subject to aspersions — apparently by the FBI — in anonymous comments to the press.

“U.S. law enforcement officials” tell the Los Angeles Times that an autopsy — which hasn’t been released to the public — reveals Mateen was HIV-negative. 

Information about the FBI's Omar Mateen investigation continues to leak, this time specifically to counteract the story of “Miguel,” who donned a disguise during a televised interview with Univision’s Maria Elena Salinas. The man said he’d met Mateen 15 to 20 times for sex at a hotel. 

“I believe this crazy horrible thing he did — that was revenge,” the man had theorized.

Miguel claimed Mateen had told him about having sex with a Puerto Rican man who’d revealed only afterward that he was HIV-positive.

"I asked him, 'Did you do a test?' Yes. He went to the pharmacy and did the test … it came out negative,  but it doesn't come out right away. It takes four, five months," Miguel told Univision.

"When I asked him what he was going to do now, his answer was 'I'm going to make them pay for what they did to me,'" remembered Miguel, suggesting Mateen wanted to retaliate against Puerto Ricans specifically.

The FBI has previously made anonymous comments in the press, saying accounts by Miguel and gay men who claimed to have spotted Mateen on hook-up apps and in gay bars were “not credible.” The FBI has yet to explain on the record why it doubts those men, who have spoken on the record with media and also talked to the FBI.

In its anonymous comments, the FBI presumes that because Mateen twice married women, gay dating apps weren’t found on his phone, and browser history didn’t include gay sites, that he wasn’t gay or bisexual. The LGBT witnesses accused of lying or being mistaken have said that’s naive on the FBI’s part. A closeted person wouldn’t leave that kind of trail, they say.

That Mateen was HIV-negative doesn’t disprove Miguel’s story either. An HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load can have sex with other men without transmitting the virus. What’s called “treatment as prevention” is advocated widely now by HIV and AIDS activists.

What Miguel said is true, that HIV can take months to show in a test. Mateen could have worried he was positive — even though he wasn’t.

In another leak from the autopsy results, the FBI says Mateen was a long time steroid user. And it says Mateen didn't target the Pulse, where 49 people were killed, because it was a gay club.

Another "U.S. law enforcement official" told The Washington Post today, “While there can be no denying the significant impact on the gay community, the investigation hasn’t revealed that he targeted Pulse because it was a gay club.”