Xavier Sims faces 16 charges due to school bomb threat

Published 11:13 pm Wednesday, August 24, 2011

An Ellenton man familiar to law enforcement agencies faces up to 24 years in prison if convicted in all counts related to a Tuesday bomb threat that emptied the county’s schools.

Xavier L. Sims, was arrested Tuesday afternoon after an extensive search that centered in Doerun, where he eventually was found hiding in the wall of his uncle’s residence, the Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office said.

Officers were able to locate Sims partially with the help of cellular telephone signals, sheriff’s Sgt. Shawn Bostick said. After the initial bomb threat was made at 9:15 a.m., two additional phone calls were made later in the morning to the county 911 center.

“Any time you call 911, 911 has capabilities of detecting where you called from,” Bostick said. “He spoke with another investigator and was expressing his concern — he was denying it (making the threat).”

Officers keyed on the Doerun area even initially because the phone signal was bounced from a cell tower in the area.

Sims, 24, of Church Street, was charged Wednesday with terroristic  threats and acts, transmitting a false  public alarm and 14 counts of disruption of a public school. The first two charges are felonies that carry maximum five-year sentences and fines of up to $10,000 each.

The 14 misdemeanor charges each carry up to a year in jail, and up to $5,000 fines on each count.

The uncle, Jerome Osby, was released Wednesday after posting a $5,000 bond. Osby, 34, 410 Fain St., Doerun, was charged with hindering a criminal apprehension.

Sims was found hiding in a wall  at  the Fain Street home next to the air conditioner return, Bostick said.

“We had to remove a panel of the house to extricate him,” he said.

Officers initially searched Osby’s home Tuesday afternoon, at which time Osby told them that his nephew was not there, Bostick said. It was when they went back an hour later that they found Sims’ hiding place.

In addition to the county charges, Sims is accused by the Moultrie Police Department of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and investigators believe that that charge may have been what set him off.

In the initial 911 call the caller asked for the detective who took those warrants and stated the desire to make him suffer as he was suffering, the sheriff’s office said.

The Moultrie investigator, Sgt. Dave Underwood, said he also had interviewed Sims last year as part of a case in which no charges were made against Sims.

“It was a situation where he was a suspect, but I was never able to establish probable cause,” Underwood said.

He charged Sims with statutory rape in June, but he was not taken into custody on the charges. Unerwood said he had a conversation with Sims about a month ago about the issue.

“I told him he needed to turn himself in, and he didn’t want to do that, I guess,” he said.

That case is based on the girl’s and mother’s statements made in May and two additional witnesses who reported that Sims told them that he had sex with the girl, Underwood said.

“I was kind of surprised, I was surprised to hear that I was the reason for anybody doing what he was doing,” he said. “That basically was the reason he did what he did, is that I had taken a warrant on him for statutory rape. That’s what I’m hearing.”

Sheriff’s investigators and Underwood interviewed Sims on Tuesday. Bostick said that Sims made no statements admitting responsibility.

Underwood said he could not reveal details of his interview.

Sims served a 10-month prison sentence in 2008 and 2009 after his probation was revoked convictions on charges of forgery theft by receiving stolen property.

He also was charged last year in cases that included charges of terroristic threats, obstruction and theft by taking.

In one of the cases, he was charged with three counts of terroristic threats and obstruction of an officer, in which he was accused of threatening three of his neighbors and attempting to run from officers when they arrived.

He pleaded guilty to a single count of terroristic threats, with the remaining counts dismissed, and was sentenced on Sept. 15, 2010, to an 180-day jail sentence and five years’ probation, a Colquitt County Superior Court spokeswoman said. He also was sentenced last year in Colquitt County State Court to 12 months’ probation on a criminal trespass case that dated back to 2004.