Convicted child molester assaults man who found him alone in room with young daughter

Jimmy Charles Ellis

By Joe Johnson

A convicted child molester was arrested last week after he assaulted a man who caught him alone in a room with the man’s 11-year-old daughter.

The incident occurred on the evening of October 24 at Pinewoods Apartments on Bailey Street, and according to a police report the following events occurred:

Jamal Gresham was visiting with his mother when he heard his daughter screaming for help “at the top of her lungs” from upstairs.

Upon going up there to see what was wrong, he saw 64-year-old Jimmy Charles Ellis leaving the room.

Gresham demanded to know from Gresham what he had been doing in his daughter’s room with the door closed, at which time Gresham ran into another room and shut the door.

Gresham had brought with him a butter knife to use in opening the door to his daughter’s room because she normally kept it locked.

Out of anger, Gresham threw the knife at the closed door of the room into which Ellis had run, and as he was going back downstairs Ellis threw a weightlifting dumbbell that struck Gresham’s head and caused two deep lacerations,

Gresham wrapped his mother’s nightgown around his head to staunch the bleeding and went outside with his family members to wait for the police to arrive.

When arresting Ellis, an officer noticed the odor of alcoholic beverage and other signs of intoxication.

Gresham hadn’t known that Ellis was a convicted sex offender until an officer told him.

In 2004 Ellis was convicted of aggravated child molestation, sodomy and related offenses, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison and eight years of probation.

After his arrest last week, he was denied bail by Magistrate Court Chief Justice Benjamin Makin, who bound the case over to Superior Court for presentment to a grand jury.