On the witness stand, Shanteari Weems wore a black T-shirt, not her federal prison uniform.

She spoke so quietly that, at times, coughing from the gallery of the Baltimore County courtroom drowned out her explanations of the workings of the Owings Mills day care she ran for more than 15 years.

Asked how she knew James Weems, the ex-Baltimore Police officer charged with sexually abusing a child at that day care, she answered in a flat tone.

“He’s my ex-husband,” she said.

The trial for James Weems on charges that include second-degree rape, sex abuse and displaying obscene material to a minor, began Tuesday. A jury, composed of more men than women, was chosen Monday.

Called as the first witness, Shanteari Weems recalled the day in summer 2022 when she first learned of the allegations against her then-husband, who she knew for more than a decade before they married in 2017. At her Randallstown home, James Weems called her name repeatedly, she said. Then he told her he had been accused of molesting a child and police had taken his phone.

Shanteari met with child protective services workers at Lil Kidz Kastle and saw Baltimore County Police tow the center’s van away.

“I had a lot of questions,” Shanteari Weems said. “He was very calm. He didn’t ask any questions.”

Jurors didn’t hear what happened later: She went to Washington, D.C., where James Weems was working security, and shot him in a hotel room. A D.C. judge sentenced her to four years in federal prison last year. She divorced her husband in 2023, court records show. Defense attorneys and prosecutors agreed that jurors wouldn’t hear about either the shooting or her incarceration.

Much of her testimony involved explaining the workings of the day care, the route used to pick up and drop off children each morning, and the layout of the day care’s space.

She testified that she never saw her husband acting inappropriately with the children. However, she said James Weems referred to the girl he is accused of abusing as his “little buddy,” gave her the job of opening the van’s door for other kids and gave her his extra snacks. She said the girl, who prosecutors described as seeming younger than her age, was “bubbly but easily persuaded.”

Assistant State’s Attorney Zarena Sita told jurors that the family of the 10-year-old girl saw her searching an adult website on her aunt’s tablet one weekend.

When they asked her who had shown her the material, she told them it was “Mr. James,” who ferried the kids each day between their schools and the day care center in a van.

Sita said Weems showed the girl pornography while abusing her in the van and that phone records showed him searching the same website that the girl would later show her family. After reading aloud search terms, including the words “teen” and “young,” along with “old man” and “grandpa,” Sita said he had made those searches with kids in the van.

Defense attorneys for James Weems argued out of sight of the jury that the searches shouldn’t be allowed as evidence, since the pornography involved adults, not children. They also argued that the exact websites he used weren’t relevant. Circuit Court Judge Michael J. Finifter denied a defense motion to keep jurors from hearing about the site names, but indicated that he might sustain objections during the trial.

The girl said Weems sexually abused her both in the van and on the playground at the day care, Sita said.

“She’s a child. She’s not lying. She had no reason to make this up,” she said.

The girl, now 12, is set to testify during the trial. For children of the girl’s age — 8 to 10 years old at the time of the alleged offenses — second-degree rape encompasses any sex act on a child, not just intercourse, Sita said.

Thomas Pavlinic, Weems’ attorney, acknowledged that jurors would hear shocking things, but said the defense would place things into context.

“This is his first opportunity to present his side of the story,” Pavlinic said of James Weems. He said James Weems will testify and added that before he was labeled a defendant, he was a “son, a sibling, a husband and a father.”

Pavlinic argued that Weems and the girl were never alone together: that there were always other children in the van with the girl and teachers present close to the day care center’s playground who would’ve witnessed abuse.

He didn’t dispute that Weems used pornography — “he had somewhat of an addiction to pornography” — but said he was looking at the adult sites on his own phone, not showing them to children.

Pavlinic also said the girl, who Sita said told a detective and a relative about the abuse, denied to a forensic interviewer that she had been forced to touch anyone or touched inappropriately by anyone.

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