Arizona man charged with TB exposure

PHOENIX, March 25 (UPI) -- An Arizona man said his indictment for having tuberculosis is retaliation for a lawsuit he filed over his involuntary quarantine.

Robert Daniels told the Arizona Republic that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio charged him with unlawfully exposing the public to a disease because Daniels had sued the county over his year-long quarantine in a Phoenix hospital.

"They don't really have evidence," said Daniels. "They can't accuse me of anything unless there's a person who got the disease from me."

The newspaper said after Daniels was confined for a year in 2006, he was sent to a Colorado hospital where further tests revealed he had not contracted a dangerous drug-resistant strain of TB as originally feared.

He later quit his court-ordered treatments and fled the United States to Moscow where he said doctors cured him. Nevertheless, Sheriff Arpaio told reporters Monday that Daniels had put county residents at risk.

"This guy is a time bomb," the sheriff declared.