Woman: Error in STD test ruined my life

The false-positive syphilis test in 2014 spread through Edna Villafane's life like an insidious infection, ruining everything in its wake, she says.

Enraged by the news that his pregnant girlfriend of eight years had a sexually transmitted disease, Villafane's boyfriend kicked down her door - which, she says, led to her eviction from her North Philadelphia apartment.

Villafane says the stress of being told she had a venereal disease, and of losing both her love and her home, caused her to go into premature labor.

By mid-December, she and her four children - the youngest just weeks old - were living in her 2002 Dodge Caravan. Their Christmas was hardly merry.

"I lost everything," she said. "Everything was gone . . . because of that test."

Now Villafane, 41, is suing the Women's Care Center at Drexel University - where she allegedly was misdiagnosed with the STD - and Drexel's College of Medicine.

She also is suing West Poplar Associates, which operates the West Poplar Apartments, where she lived, on 12th Street near Fairmount Avenue, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority, which she says administered her Section 8 housing.

Spokeswomen for Drexel and the Housing Authority declined to comment on the pending litigation, and West Poplar Associates did not respond to requests for comment.

To hear Villafane tell it, her troubles began in the summer of 2014, when she sought prenatal care at the center and was told her routine urine test had come back positive for syphilis.

After eight years and one previous child with her boyfriend (she also has an adult child and two juvenile children from an earlier relationship), Villafane was shocked.

"I knew I was in a monogamous relationship," she said, "so I started to suspect him."

But Villafane's boyfriend, Michael Stockert, who had been living with her, swore he'd been faithful, too. Outraged by the news, he left Villafane and her three minor children - then ages 11, 8, and 5 - and moved to Reading.

"He was really, really mad about these results," she said. "Now he was saying the baby is not his."

Meanwhile, Villafane continued to receive prenatal care at the center, where, she said, she was injected with a drug to fight syphilis.

When Stockert's STD test came back negative, he drove to Villafane's apartment and kicked down her door at 1 a.m., after she wouldn't let him in to show her his results because she wanted to avoid a confrontation, she said.

"I wanted answers," Stockert said in an interview Tuesday.

Because of the damage to her door, according to the lawsuit filed March 22 in Common Pleas Court, the landlord began the eviction process against Villafane, a tenant for eight years.

According to the landlord-tenant complaint filed in Municipal Court, Villafane was evicted for "unauthorized occupants & illegal activity."

James Radmore, Villafane's Center City attorney, said the unauthorized occupant was Stockert and the illegal activity was his kicking down the door.

With her life spiraling out of control, Villafane said, she went to an appointment at the center and saw a new doctor, who noticed how stressed and weak she appeared.

After Villafane explained her troubles, the doctor decided to recheck the STD test results, Villafane said.

"She came back in, she put the papers down on the table, and she said, 'Edna, you never had syphilis,' " Villafane recalled.

Hoping to stop the eviction process, Villafane said, she asked the center to put its mistake in writing.

In a letter dated Oct. 28, 2014, Patricia Ragone, an instructor of obstetrics and gynecology at Drexel, wrote that Villafane was "given incorrect information that caused tremendous hurt and upsetment."

The letter continued: "We have apologized to both Edna and her partner. . . . The circumstances that ensued were because of a mistake on our part. We want to help her and to make things right."

But the letter - a copy of which was provided by Radmore - had no effect. Villafane's landlord continued the eviction process.

According to Villafane, she was told at an eviction hearing that if she signed a document, she would not have an eviction on her record. She says she didn't know that by signing the document, she also agreed to leave her home. No one counseled her at the hearing, she said.

In November 2014, Villafane gave birth to a baby girl, one month premature. On Dec. 12, 2014, when her infant was just weeks old, Villafane said, she was told she had 10 minutes to vacate her apartment.

Everything she couldn't grab was thrown on the lawn - and what she wasn't able to move off the lawn by 5 p.m. was thrown in the trash, she said, including her newborn's crib.

"It was painful," she said, "knowing you had nowhere to go, but you had to go."

Stockert said he felt guilty over the situation.

"I was hurt because I feel like it was my fault she got kicked out of the apartment," he said. "She went through a lot of it on her own before she found out about the mishap."

For a month, Villafane lived with Stockert and the four children - three juveniles and the newborn - in the Dodge, in the parking lot of the apartment complex. The children went to school off and on during that time.

It was about a month before Villafane's elderly mother cleaned out the basement of her one-bedroom apartment so Villafane and her children could live there. Before long, Villafane moved her family to a place she could afford in Shamokin, Northumberland County.

These days, she and Stockert, 29, are back together, but Villafane said she has never been the same.

"It's horrible," she said. "It's the worst experience I've actually had."

Radmore said he tried to work with Drexel without filing a lawsuit, but received no response to his written requests.

"Edna is not a wealthy person, and to lose what little you've been able to accumulate over your 40 years of life because of what occurred in this situation is really devastating," Radmore said.

"It's not as if she had a lot to lose, and what she did have, she lost it all."

farrs@phillynews.com

215-854-4225@FarFarrAway