WILLIAMSPORT — A Williamsport man will spend up to 12 years in state prison for causing the brain injuries that left a toddler unable to walk or talk.
“It’s a tragic situation all around,” Lycoming County Judge Nancy L. Butts said Friday, when she sentenced Bahteem Raimond Sims, 25, to 6 to 12 years in prison after he pleaded no contest to aggravated assault.
In entering a no-contest plea Sims did not admit to the crime but told the judge he did not dispute the evidence against him outlined by First Assistant District Attorney Martin L. Wade.
For sentencing purposes, a no-contest plea is treated the same as a guilty plea.
The boy was 2 when he was injured on May 9, 2018, while Sims was watching him. The child’s mother Jade L. Burnette was at work.
Sims told Williamsport police he found the boy lying behind the couch with his eyes “wondering” and his breathing labored.
He said he tried reviving him and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation before calling 911.
Dr. Paul J. Bellino III, a pediatric specialist at Geisinger Medical Center near Danville, disputed Sims’ claim that the toddler had fallen off a couch and testified at the preliminary hearing it was a case of child abuse.
He cited multiple traumatic injuries that included bleeding on the brain, retinal hemorrhages, multiple bruises and broken ribs in the healing stage.
The injuries will prevent the toddler from ever being self-sufficient, Bellino testified.
The child has been deprived of normal life and he will never know what he should be experiencing, Butts said. He requires 24-hour care, Wade added.
Sims had told police he had moved into Burnette’s apartment in the 400 block of Glenwood Avenue in January 2018 and quit his job two months later to stay home to care for the child while she worked.
Burnette, 30, was sentenced in 2019 to 8 to 18 months in prison followed by three years’ probation on charges of endangering the welfare of children and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The endangering charge, to which she pleaded guilty, was for earlier injuries to the child.
Marijuana paraphernalia including a grinder and bong each containing residue was found during a search of the apartment, police said.
Charges against Sims of simple assault, endangering the welfare of children, recklessly endangering another person and possession of drug paraphernalia were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
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