Omar Mateen's Alleged Male Lover Claims Orlando Nightclub Shooting Was Act Of 'Revenge'
ORLANDO (CBSNewYork) -- Explosive allegations have surfaced surrounding Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, after Mateen's alleged male lover claims he did the shooting as "revenge" against Latino men.
The man, known only as "Miguel," says Mateen was looking to be loved and embraced, CBS2's Andrea Grymes reported. Despite that, he believes Mateen acted on revenge when he shot up the gay Pulse nightclub after being with a Puerto Rican man he later learned was HIV positive.
"He was terrified that he was infected," the man said in an interview with Univision. "I asked him, 'Did you do a test?' Yes. He went to the pharmacy and did the test … it came out negative, but it doesn't come out right away. It takes four, five months."
Miguel says Mateen hated gay Puerto Ricans for the "bad things" they did to him.
Univision reported that the FBI told the network it had spoken with Miguel, but a law enforcement official would neither confirm or deny this to CBS News.
CBS News and the Los Angeles Times previously reported that Mateen used gay dating apps. He also frequented the Pulse nightclub before killing 49 people more than one week ago.
The man claims he and Mateen met around 20 times, with the last meeting taking place in December. He said Mateen never revealed his name to him, but told him that he was 35 and married with a son. He told Univision that he believed Mateen's wife knew that he went to gay bars and that his marriage was to hide the fact that he was "100 percent" gay.
CBS News reported that on the night of the shooting Mateen went into the club and received a wristband and left. He then returned nearly two hours later to begin his attack.
Miguel's interview comes as mourners continue to say their final farewells to the 49 people killed in the attack.
On Tuesday, loved ones remembered 25-year-old Enrique Rios at a church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
"He loved everybody, he made everybody happy," Rios' grandmother, Maria Perez, said.
Back in Orlando, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch visited a memorial for the victims and met with investigators. Lynch says they're revisiting prior investigations into Mateen since he was previously on the FBI's radar.
"We're gonna go back and look at all of our contact with him and to see if there is anything that we missed," Lynch said.
A Muslim man who worshiped at the same mosque as Mateen told CBS News he called the FBI on Mateen two years ago. He said he was concerned after Mateen spoke about watching videos from a radical Islamic cleric. The FBI investigated, but the probe was later closed due to lack of evidence.