AIDS Suit Against Cliburn Dismissed
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FORT WORTH — A judge has dismissed a multimillion-dollar palimony suit filed against Van Cliburn by a man who claims the pianist exposed him to the AIDS virus during a 17-year sexual relationship.
District Judge Fred Davis said he agreed with Cliburn’s lawyers that no part of the arrangement between Thomas E. Zaremba, a 48-year-old mortician, and Cliburn was in writing and that therefore nothing was binding.
When the suit was filed in April, Zaremba’s attorney said that his client does not have the AIDS virus and that there was no reason to believe that Cliburn has HIV. But he accused the pianist of having sex with other people who were HIV-positive during his relationship with Zaremba.
Cliburn, 61, said he has not been tested for HIV and does not have AIDS.
He vaulted to fame in 1958 when he won the Tchaikovsky International Music Competition in Moscow.
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