© Kevin Richardson/Baltimore Sun/TNS Kidz Kastle Child Development Center is closed after the person who runs it was arrested in Washington, D.C.
The Baltimore-area day care owner who shot her husband over child sex abuse allegations entered a guilty plea on Monday to assault and firearm charges in D.C. Superior Court.
Shanteari Weems, 50, could be sentenced to prison time for the offenses. Her sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 3, Judge Michael O’Keefe said Monday.
Weems shot her husband, James S. Weems Jr., because she believed he’d molested children at her Owings Mills day care, according to charging documents. She was arrested in July following a shooting at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The prosecutor’s factual statement said Weems went to the hotel armed with a pistol she was unlicensed to carry in D.C. and shot her husband twice following an argument. Her husband underwent emergency surgery to repair his femur following the shooting.
She was indicted in October on charges of aggravated assault, firearm possession in a crime of violence, carrying a pistol without a license and resisting arrest. Her guilty plea was for aggravated assault and carrying a pistol; the other charges were dismissed.
Weems appeared at the Monday hearing in person wearing an orange jumpsuit. She spoke when the judge asked her questions but did not otherwise address the court.
Court filings stated she told police she didn’t intend to kill her husband and that a conversation between the two escalated to an argument. He later stood up and began to “go towards” her and she shot him, she said.
Her attorney, Tony Garcia, said in August the shooting was a “split-second” decision. He said Weems was “not a fighter.”
When Judge Sherry M. Trafford decided in late July that Weems should not be released before her next court appearance, attendees on a virtual platform objected, calling out: “What if that was your grandkid?” and “Free Ms. Weems!”
Weems’ husband, James, faces dozens of criminal charges in Baltimore County Circuit Court connected to alleged sexual abuse of children. At least some of the children attended Lil Kidz Kastle, the day care his wife owns.
James Weems, a former Baltimore Police officer, worked at his wife’s day care for four years and as a bus driver for two of those years, according to the Baltimore County prosecutor on his case, Zarena Sita.
He is slated for a jury trial in May, according to a courts website.
D.C. court filings said police recovered a notebook from the hotel where the shooting occurred. It had handwritten messages that said “I’m going to shoot” him “but not kill him” and “I want these kids to get justice.”
The filings said Weems told officers she went to meet with her husband and asked him about “accusations of child molestation.”
Garcia, her attorney, previously said the allegations were “the worst nightmare of anyone who owns a day care.”
Weems’ day care closed on July 20, the day before the shooting. A news release from Baltimore County Police in July said the agency was working closely with D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, prosecutors, the state Department of Education and the state Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services.
A spokeswoman for the human services agency said at the time that Maryland confidentiality laws prevented her from confirming or denying a CPS investigation.
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