Man jailed for hitting pregnant girlfriend

By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

A West Marion Avenue man is the Mahoning County jail on $12,500 bond after police reports said he beat his pregnant girlfriend Sunday morning.

Craig Sims, 37, was arraigned in municipal court Monday on a charge of felony domestic violence because of previous domestic-violence arrests — and also because the victim is six months pregnant with Sims’ child.

Assistant City Prosecutor Shelli Freeze told Magistrate Anthony Sertick that Sims had a pending domestic-violence case with the same victim from January 2014, but Sims disputed that, saying the charge was dismissed.

A search of municipal court records shows that the charge was dismissed in August after a trial in which jurors could not reach a verdict. The same jury also found him not guilty of aggravated menacing.

Court records also show a jury found him not guilty of two counts of domestic violence in 2006.

Reports said officers were called to Sims’ home in the 400 block of West Marion Avenue on a report of a woman needing help. When they arrived, they found a woman in the street bleeding from the mouth and nose and spitting blood onto the street.

Reports said the woman told officers Sims had picked up her and her child, who is 11/2, earlier and took them to his home. The woman told police he then began punching her and threatened to kill her with a gun.

The woman told police Sims came out of the house and dragged her back inside. She managed to call 911 before he threw her out and locked her out, reports said.

Reports said officers went inside the home and found the woman’s child unharmed. Sims was not there, but police followed a trail of fresh footprints in the snow to a home in the 500 block of Cohasset Drive, reports said.

Reports said police found Sims there and arrested him and took him to the Mahoning County jail.

Besides the bond, Sertick also issued an order barring Sims from having any kind of contact with the woman.