An alleged victim of clergy sexual abuse who has sued the Worcester Catholic Diocese has had himself tested for AIDS and says the results refute pretrial deposition testimony by a diocesan official that he is HIV-positive.

Sime Braio, 53, of Shrewsbury, said he decided to get tested and go public with the result because recent news accounts suggesting he is HIV-positive were making life difficult for him. He said the test was conducted by Quest Diagnostics Inc. of Cambridge and the test result was negative.

While AIDS testing is not 100 percent accurate, Mr. Braio said he is satisfied that the result would ease the concern expressed by people close to him. He said he has constantly been asked in recent weeks why he would keep such information private but make it available to county and church officials.

Mr. Braio has filed a civil suit charging Auxiliary Bishop George E. Rueger, then a priest at Our Lady of Lourdes parish, with raping him in the early 1960s.

In pretrial deposition testimony made public last month, Monsignor Thomas J. Sullivan, diocesan chancellor and liaison to District Attorney John J. Conte's office, said he was told by First Assistant District Attorney James Reagon that Mr. Braio is HIV-positive.

After the deposition, Mr. Braio denied that he had HIV or that he ever told anyone he had been infected. After reading the deposition testimony, Mr. Reagon denied telling Monsignor Sullivan that Mr. Braio had HIV.

In the deposition Monsignor Sullivan said, "He (Mr. Reagon) told me that he (Mr. Braio) was a very sick man. That he, you know, has heart - had heart problems, was HIV-positive. You know, had, you know - we already knew he had a criminal record."

Mr. Braio's lawyer, Daniel J. Shea of Houston, said the conversation between the district attorney's office and diocese amounted to defamation of character.

"It's clear that somebody is manufacturing information in an attempt to discredit Mr. Braio," Mr. Shea said.

A telephone call to the district attorney's office was not returned.

Diocesan spokesman Raymond L. Delisle sent an e-mail with the following statement in response to a call to his office: "Diocesan personnel never made any public statement or release of Mr. Braio's medical condition or even the possibility of his being HIV-positive. It evidently came up when Msgr. Sullivan answered a question posed by Atty. Shea during a deposition. It was Mr. Braio's own lawyer, Atty. Daniel Shea, who publicly released that to the Telegram when he released a deposition without redacting private information, and the Telegram which chose to publicize private information that has no bearing on the case. HIV/AIDS is not and should not be an issue in this case, and should be treated as a private matter like any other medical condition."

Mr. Shea, who has complained of a cozy relationship between the district attorney and Bishop Daniel P. Reilly, said the conversation Monsignor Sullivan referred to about his client's HIV status is proof that an adversarial relationship does not exist.

"This is more than just cozy, it's manufacturing evidence against Mr. Braio that is defamatory per se. They're accusing him of having a loathsome disease," Mr. Shea said.

"Either Reagon is lying or Sullivan is lying. I want to know whether or not Monsignor Sullivan was perjuring himself in that deposition," he said.

The district attorney, he said, could seek an indictment against Monsignor Sullivan on a perjury charge. But if Monsignor Sullivan is telling the truth, he said, Mr. Reagon is liable.

"The only defense Reagon would have would be truth, it's an affirmative defense," Mr. Shea said. "But we've now given the proof."

In another development in the Braio case, Mr. Shea said he has found the house in Scituate where his client alleges he was raped by Bishop Rueger.

"Sime has identified the house in Scituate in which he alleged he was raped by Bishop Rueger and he has done it under oath in his interrogatory answers," Mr. Shea said.

Monsignor Sullivan testified that he never believed Mr. Braio's story. He said he did not believe Mr. Braio was truthful when he alleged that Bishop Rueger took him to a house in Scituate.