Domestic Violence Sentence
By Greg Yee | greg.yee@presstelegram.com | PUBLISHED: October 3, 2014 at 7:35 p.m.
A Long Beach man received what City Prosecutor Doug Haubert on Tuesday said was likely the longest misdemeanor domestic violence sentence in city history.
Gary Steven McJimsey, 36, was sentenced to eight years in county jail after a jury convicted him of battering two women, threatening them multiple times by phone and text message, and vandalizing their property, Haubert’s office said in a statement Tuesday. The jury took less than one hour to return guilty verdicts on nine misdemeanor counts. The court consolidated the victims’ cases for the trial.
“The sentence was long, but appropriate, because of the harm repeatedly inflicted by McJimsey and the extreme fear he caused his victims,” Haubert said in a statement. “The judge had little choice but to give him the maximum in order to prevent future violence.”
Both victims’ names have been excluded to protect their identities.
An attorney for Mc Jimsey could not be reached.
A pattern of violence
The jury found true that McJimsey broke into an apartment where his ex-girlfriend, who is also the mother of his child, was sleeping Feb. 8, 2015. He followed her outside, threw her to the ground, straddled her and punched her.
The ex-girlfriend tried to call police, prosecutors said.
After punching her, McJimsey used a hammer to smash her car windows and later sent her threatening text messages that threatened her life, prosecutors said.
“One day ur gonna look back if your still here and wish this day never happen (sic),” he wrote in one of the messages.
A second victim
On Nov. 5, 2015, McJimsey saw his girlfriend in a photo standing with another man, prosecutors said. He “became enraged with jealousy” and sent her text messages, including one that said he would “bash [her] head into a pulp.”
The next day, he texted her a video of him cutting her clothes with scissors inside her bedroom, prosecutors said. In the next two weeks, he made threatening calls and sent texts to her.
She got a temporary restraining order, but after McJimsey was served, he broke into her home by sawing off the metal security door, prosecutors said.
During trial, the jury also heard evidence that he assaulted her in 2012 while she was pregnant with their child, prosecutors said.
Haubert commended the work of Pooja Kumar, the deputy city prosecutor who handled the trial and sentencing, saying that she did an amazing job.
He also said he appreciated the jury for recognizing McJimsey’s violent tendencies and Long Beach Superior Court Commissioner Nicole Heeseman for taking a strong stance on the sentence.
“The defendant’s pattern of abuse and violence was very serious and would have continued,” Kumar said in a statement. “Both victims lived in fear for their safety and there’s no telling what he would have done to them next.”