GENESIS SIMS - 9 yo (2010) - Monument (N of Colorado Springs) CO

Sims trial rescheduled for January

For the second time in four months the trial of Hanif Sims — the father who allegedly beat his daughter to death and buried her in a crawlspace — has been postponed and rescheduled.
Jury selection was set to begin Oct. 11 but the trial is now scheduled for Jan. 30, 2012 to allow Sims’ attorney more time to prepare for the trial according to Lee Richards, public information officer for the Fourth Judicial District Attorney’s office.
Sims was initially charged with Child Abuse Causing Death, Tampering with Evidence and Concealing Death in the death of his daughter, Genesis Sims. However, a First Degree Murder Charge was added after Sims’ girlfriend Monique Lynch accepted a plea bargain in early May and agreed to testify against Sims.
Lynch was originally charged with First Degree Murder in Genesis’ death but after she pled guilty to the lesser charge of Child Abuse Causing Death, the murder charge was dropped. Lynch was sentenced on June 30 to serve a 27-year sentence.
Genesis Sims’ body was discovered buried in the crawlspace of a Monument home located at 764 Century Place, Unit A by construction workers who were working on the house in May 2010. During an investigation it was discovered that the body was that of Genesis, who was last seen alive in Dec. 2008.
Sims and Lynch had fled to California shortly after Genesis was last seen and were later apprehended in Henderson, Nev., in July 2010.
The couple has since blamed each other for Genesis’ death. Both parties agreed, however, that she had been beaten to death and buried in the crawlspace. Additionally, during the investigation authorities learned there had been a history of physical abuse on Genesis by her father.
Sims is scheduled to appear in court for a motion hearing Dec. 14. Richards said the trial is expected to last four weeks.

http://www.ourcoloradonews.com/trilakes/news/sims-trial-rescheduled-for-january/article_31d33238-5cc1-590d-97c0-dbe304a94651.html

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.

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/sims-132598-murder-first.html#ixzz1l0qO0dWK

Stupid LE. How is justice supposed to be served for this poor abused murdered child when they act like idiots. I hope the monster gets the full sentence.

This isn't perfect justice but it is better than a conviction being overturned and these monsters getting off Scot free.

I hope these POSs receive daily beatings in prison. They should both be neutered and spayed with a hacksaw and rusty scalpel.