#Ex-con allegedly shot girlfriend’s child on accident in NYC

An ex-con allegedly shot his girlfriend’s sleeping 8-year-old daughter in the stomach last month — after recklessly firing a gun he thought was not loaded, Bronx prosecutors said Thursday in court.

“The defendant carelessly assumed the firearm was unloaded and discharged the firearm, causing a bullet to strike a sleeping child in the abdomen, ripping through her torso and exiting her body through her shoulder, bruising her liver,” Assistant District Attorney Sean Doddy said at Jayshienm Daniels’ virtual arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.

Daniels, who didn’t speak during the proceeding, appeared by video with his surgical mask pulled down around his neck.

His girlfriend told police that her daughter was sleeping on an air mattress in the living room when she heard a gunshot Sept. 23, according to law-enforcement sources. She ran into the living room and saw a gun on the bed and Daniels holding her daughter.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was loaded,” he allegedly told her, according to police sources.

After the shooting, prosecutors said that Daniels, 38, and his girlfriend took the girl to Lincoln Hospital where she was rushed into emergency surgery. He then returned to the apartment on East 143rd Street near Third Avenue, packed his bags and fled to Vermont.

On Monday, he was pulled over for driving without a license and extradited to New York. At the time of his arrest, Daniels had a gun holster and bullets on him, officials said.

Daniels is charged with assault, weapon’s possession, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child in connection to the girl’s shooting for which he faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Dodd pushed Judge Shari Michels to hold Daniels without bail, calling him a six-time convicted drug dealer with three parole revocations, five felony convictions and an arrest record in two different states. He also has an open drug case in Vermont.

But Daniels’ defense lawyer Adam Sheldon countered that his criminal history was mostly more than eight years old and that he has since turned his life around and works as a painter. He pointed out that the girl’s mom initially told police that a stranger stormed into the apartment and shot the child.

The judge ordered Daniels held in lieu of $150,000 cash or bond and issued protective orders in favor of his girlfriend and her daughter.