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An attorney for James Weems Jr. told jurors during opening statements that his client intended to testify in his own defense at his child abuse trial this week.
TOWSON, Md. — A retired Baltimore police officer accused of sexually abusing four children at his wife’s day care could take the stand in his own defense Thursday after prosecutors rested their case Wednesday evening.
James Stanley Weems Jr., 59, faces 33 counts, including second-degree rape and sexual abuse of a minor, for allegedly molesting multiple young children at Lil Kidz Kastle Daycare Center in Owings Mills, Maryland, where he worked as a van driver. A jury trial began Monday on 10 of those counts connected to one female victim who was 10 years old when Weems allegedly showed her pornography and assaulted her inside the day care’s van.
Prosecutors rested their case Wednesday after two days of testimony that saw both Weems’ ex-wife Shanteari Weems and the now-12-year-old girl herself take the stand. Shanteari, who has since divorced Weems and changed her last name to Young, told jurors her former husband gave the alleged victim special attention and would frequently talk about her, calling her“My little helper.”
Shanteari’s testimony was limited to details about the day care and her husband’s job there, which included driving children to and from school in a large white van. Jurors were barred from learning that Shanteari shot her husband twice in a D.C. hotel in July 2022 after confronting him about the allegations against him. Jurors have also been barred from hearing details about the other alleged victims, including one, also a young girl, who told investigators Weems gave her the same job opening and closing the day care van door as the alleged victim in this case.
Weems is being represented by attorneys Thomas Pavlinic and Peter McDowell. During opening statements Thursday, Pavlinic said his client intended to take the stand to testify in his own defense.
“You’ll be able to see him and hear him and judge his credibility about what really happened in the van,” Pavlinic said.
Pavlinic also gave a brief preview of what Weems may say. Pavlinic told jurors that in 2022 Weems was suffering from an addiction to pornography and that that explained Internet searches on his phone showing him viewing adult material while driving the van. But, he said, that was the extent of it.
“Never, ever did he give [the juvenile victim] his phone to say, ‘Look at this site,’” Pavlinic said. “Never even once.”
The defense is also expected to call an expert witness to attempt to refute some of the electronic evidence collected in the case. On Thursday, prosecutors called an agent from the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST) who testified that he’d found more than 170 searches for adult materials on Weems’ cellphone while he was in the immediate vicinity of multiple Baltimore-area elementary schools where he picked up and dropped off children from the day care.
If convicted of the most serious charge against him, second-degree rape, Weems would face a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life behind bars.
Weems’ ex-wife, Shanteari, pleaded guilty last year to two counts for shooting him and is currently serving a four-year prison sentence at a federal facility in Kentucky.
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