Channon Phipps; Barred From School in ‘80s Because of HIV

LAGUNA HILLS — Channon Lee Phipps, a hemophiliac who became the first California student barred from a public campus for being HIV-positive, has died. He was 20.

Phipps died Tuesday of complications associated with hemophilia and AIDS.

He was in the fifth grade when he contracted the virus through tainted blood products, and quickly gained statewide attention when he battled a school system that did not want him and a guardian who embezzled from him.

Deborha Franckewitz, the boy’s aunt and guardian, was by Phipps’ side in 1986 when he won his courtroom fight to return to school, but seven years later the pair returned to the legal arena on different sides. In May, 1993, Franckewitz was sentenced to nine months in jail for siphoning $52,000 from her ailing nephew’s trust fund.

Later that year Phipps pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine, his second drug offense. Awaiting sentencing, he told a Times reporter that the drugs were a way to escape his disintegrating home life and health problems.

“I’d really like to go away somewhere where nobody knows me and start over,” he said.

On Wednesday, about two dozen mourners, including Phipps’ fiancee, attended a memorial service for him in Laguna Hills.