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Hanif Sims Accused Of Murdering His 7-Year-Old Daughter, Cops A Plea To The Lesser Charge Of Child Abuse Resulting In Death UPDATE: Hanif Sims Sentenced To 40 Years For The Death Of His Daughter Genesis

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Hanif Sims Accused Of Murdering His 7-Year-Old Daughter, Cops A Plea To The Lesser Charge Of Child Abuse Resulting In Death UPDATE: Hanif Sims Sentenced To 40 Years For The Death Of His Daughter Genesis Empty Hanif Sims Accused Of Murdering His 7-Year-Old Daughter, Cops A Plea To The Lesser Charge Of Child Abuse Resulting In Death UPDATE: Hanif Sims Sentenced To 40 Years For The Death Of His Daughter Genesis

Post by NiteSpinR Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:36 pm

January 30, 2012

Hanif Sims Accused Of Murdering His 7-Year-Old Daughter, Cops A Plea To The Lesser Charge Of Child Abuse Resulting In Death UPDATE: Hanif Sims Sentenced To 40 Years For The Death Of His Daughter Genesis Untitl13

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.

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Last edited by NiteSpinR on Sat May 18, 2013 10:38 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Hanif Sims Accused Of Murdering His 7-Year-Old Daughter, Cops A Plea To The Lesser Charge Of Child Abuse Resulting In Death UPDATE: Hanif Sims Sentenced To 40 Years For The Death Of His Daughter Genesis Empty Hanif Sims Sentenced To 40 Years For The Death Of His Daughter Genesis

Post by NiteSpinR Sat May 18, 2013 10:35 pm

Apr 24, 2012

The father who pleaded guilty to beating his young daughter to death and burying her body in a crawl space was sentenced Tuesday afternoon.

Hanif Sims pleaded guilty in January to the charge of child abuse resulting in the death of his 7-year-old daughter Genesis, whose body was found by contractors while digging under the Monument town home where the father and daughter once lived.

In that neighborhood, homeowners say they're glad to see justice served and this horrifying chapter come to a close.

"Probably would be a good closing chapter for some of them at least knowing that the bad event that occurred here, the murder of a young child has been sentenced and brought to fruition and closed," neighbor George Starkgraf said.

After hearing from both the defense and the prosecution, a judge elected to sentence Sims to 40 years in prison.

His girlfriend, Monique Lynch, accepted a plea deal to testify against him in order to receive a lesser sentence. She was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Lynch reportedly told detectives that Sims and Genesis got in an argument, which ultimately led Sims to grab his daughter by the throat and begin punching her. One punch caused Genesis to fall backwards in the bathtub, knocking her unconscious. When CPR didn't revive the child, Lynch said she and Sims started discussing ways to get rid of the body, ultimately deciding to bury the body rather than burn it, as Sims allegedly first suggested.

Lynch told a courtroom last June that she accepted full responsibility for her role in Genesis' death, that she stood by and did nothing while Sims killed his daughter. She was sentenced to 27 years.


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