Finally! We're finally seeing a judge acknowledge the screwy history that's been behind this case since the beginning. We're just starting to take a peek here at how an abuser daddy like HANIF SIMS managed to attain and maintain custody of a child. How Daddy (and the new gal pal) were being "investigated" for child abuse back in New Jersey, but how they were never found accountable for anything they did. CPS in Colorado messed up as well, though that's not explored here. Previous newspaper accounts have said that the mother back in New Jersey lost custody when she was (intentionally?) not informed of the court dates. Typical NJ corruption and incompetence....
http://www.gazette.com/articles/sims-132598-murder-first.html
Father pleads guilty to child abuse resulting in death
January 30, 2012 12:04 PM
LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE
A former Monument man accused in the murder of his 7-year-old daughter pleaded guilty to a lesser count Monday, a week after a judge cited what he called “stunningly sloppy police work” on the case.
Slated to begin trial Monday, Hanif Sims took a last-minute plea to child abuse resulting in death, averting courtroom battles over a tape that proved Sims never made a confession that authorities said he did.
Sims, 31, faces 27 to 40 years in prison rather than the automatic life term he would have received with a murder conviction.
Prospective jurors were thanked and released from their subpoenas Monday — marking an unexpected end to a trial that was expected to last up to a month.
Whether “sloppy work” by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office led prosecutors to sign off on Sims’ 11th hour plea deal wasn’t clear because prosecutors Margaret Vellar and Sharon Flaherty declined to comment, citing a gag order.
Sims will be sentenced April 14 by 4th Judicial District Judge G. David Miller.
Sims’ former girlfriend and co-defendant Monique Lynch has already been sentenced to 27 years in prison. She also eluded a first-degree murder charge in the case — by agreeing to testify against Sims at trial.
After Lynch made the deal with prosecutors last year, they dropped the murder charge against her and filed a first-degree murder count against Sims, citing new details that Lynch provided as a condition of the plea.
The couple have blamed each other for causing the girl’s death, leaving investigators with disputed accounts of what happened. An autopsy found that the girl, Genesis, died as a result of a homicide but didn’t determine how, with an El Paso County coroner saying her body was too decomposed. Genesis had been wrapped in plastic and left in the crawl space months before Sims and Lynch were arrested.
Sims and Lynch both were implicated in child abuse documented by New Jersey child welfare workers, who testified at pretrial hearings. Prosecutors alleged that Sims and Lynch left New Jersey to avoid the agency’s scrutiny.
According to testimony on the stand, New Jersey authorities determined Genesis was once made to carry her fecal matter to school as punishment for soiling her bedroom. The girl reportedly said she was too afraid to make it to the bathroom.
At Lynch’s sentencing, Miller said there were “many circumstances” in which she could have intervened in acts of abuse by Sims.
The case against Sims was weakened before trial by the revelation that El Paso County sheriff’s detectives made a series of false statements about a confession from Sims.
The proof came in December, when a missing tape turned up and established that regardless of what the detectives said, Sims didn’t confess to leaving his injured daughter to suffer for two days on a bed before she was possibly buried alive.
Sheriff’s detectives Ralph Losasso and Sgt. Robert Jaworksi, who conducted the interview after Sims and Lynch were arrested in Henderson, Nev., and who stood by their claims, were cited by Judge Miller for “stunningly sloppy police work.”
Confronted with the evidence, lead detective Losasso said on the stand he was sleep-deprived when he misinterpreted one of Sims’ answers.
Losasso and Jaworski had previously said they inadvertently destroyed notes of the interview and didn’t record it.
After Miller ordered a review of evidence-gathering practices by the sheriff’s office, a District Attorney’s investigator tracked down a copy of the interview from a Nevada police detective who was in the room at the time — even though Losasso said no one else was present.
After reviewing the record, Miller directed harsh words at the detectives but said he couldn’t determine if they were lying or mistaken.
Miller tossed out other evidence from the interview and ordered that Sims’ attorneys Matthew Werner and Tracey Eubanks would have “wide latitude” to question investigators over the errors.
Eubanks earlier this month offered a glimpse of what a jury might have seen as a result — by pushing Losasso on the stand until he was visibly shaken.
The judge said that dismissing the case would be too extreme a penalty for police misbehavior.