Many news sites reported on Monday that a daycare owner in Baltimore pleaded guilty to assault and weapons charges for allegedly shooting her retired police officer husband over suspicions that he had s*xually abused children at her facility.
Shanteari Weems was charged with various counts following the shooting on July 21. Her husband, James Weems, Jr., was unharmed. The event took place at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington, DC.
It was reported in court documents obtained by WMAR that Shanteari and James were in a hotel room when she confronted him with s*xual assault charges made against him by the parents of three children who attended her Lil’ Kidz Kastle Daycare Center in Owings Mills, Md.
James, a retired Baltimore police officer, drove the daycare’s buses for two years before moving on to other pursuits. Shanteari Weems’s lawyer, Tony Garcia, said that his client shot him in self-defense because he had gotten violent and was approaching her.
Two firearms and a notebook were found in the room after the fight broke out. In addition to a purported will and detailed plans to murder James, Shanteari’s notebook also purportedly included a list of weapons and ammunition. She apparently only wanted to “paralyze” him instead of killing him in her letter.
“She thought that she was not going to survive that evening. So she wrote a note,” Shanteari’s lawyer, Tony Garcia, told WBalTV11. “In that note, she wrote that she had no intention of killing him at all, but she did have an intent to stop him from molesting more children.”
According to Assistant United States Attorney LaVater Massie-Banks, who testified on behalf of the prosecution on Monday, Shanteari was quite deliberate in his decision to shoot James in the neck during the altercation. When he had fallen to the floor of his hotel room, “she walked over and shot him in the leg, shattering his femur,” as reported by The Washington Post.
According to the prosecutor, James had to have surgery and was dependent on others for mobility while he was recovering.
James was wanted for questioning and eventual arrest shortly after the shooting in July. Court documents acquired by The Washington Post revealed that he now faces over 30 counts of child s*xual abuse and assault relating to at least four alleged victims. A May trial date has been set, and he is reportedly being held without bond.
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Shanteari admitted guilt on charges of aggravated assault and firearm possession without a license. She may spend up to two years behind bars.
“We are not asking anyone to feel sorry for her, but we are asking people to have empathy for her,” Garcia said of his client, per the Post. She will remain in jail until she is sentenced.
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