After the shooting, Weems had a metal rod placed in his leg. He also will have to walk with a walker. He has been accused of sexually assaulting four children and has been charged with 30 counts of child sexual abuse and assault charges, the Post noted. Weems will go to trial in May 2023.
Darrin Klimek
The Baltimore woman who shot her husband over sexual abuse allegations has plead guilty in court. Shanteari Weems pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and carrying a pistol without a license, the Washington Post reported. If convicted, she faces up to two years in prison.
She was initially charged with possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, aggravated assault while armed, carrying a pistol without a license outside a home or office, and resisting arrest. Weems, who owns a daycare called Lil Kidz Kastle, was told that her husband, James Weems, Jr., had been sexually abusing a child that attends her daycare by their mother.
She went to confront her husband about it at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington D.C., where he was working as security at the National Urban League’s convention. She claimed that she came armed because she knew he would be armed. After she arrived and confronted him, she alleged that he became aggressive. She said this is when she shot him twice, once in the neck and in the thigh.
“My client indicated that this man, who she knew to be armed, made a physical advance toward her,” Weems’s lawyer Tony Garcia said. “It is our position that she told the officers she was scared.”
During one court hearing, Garcia said she shot him in self-defense.
Garcia has been trying to get Weems released pending trial, but her bail was denied. During a court hearing, he said Weems was overcome with emotions after the allegations against her husband.
“She wanted justice for these kids,” Garcia said. “She wanted him to face justice. Her duty was to these single fathers and mothers.”
He added, “She went down there asking him what happened,” attorney Tony Garcia said. “He went from zero to a thousand. He came at her and she defended herself.”
Washington, D.C. Superior Court Magistrate Judge Sherry Trafford wasn’t moved by that argument and denied her bail back in July.
“Whatever decision-making process Ms. Weems was engaging in gives me great concern regarding her ability to make decisions rationally, in a way that protects the community and individuals around her,” she said according to WUSA9.
A journal was found where Weems stated in one entry that she planned to harm her husband after she learned of these allegations.
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