No extra time for child abuser; trial expert under scrutiny

PANAMA CITY — A man convicted of caving in his infant son’s skull will not serve additional time for several unrelated felonies after he entered a plea Monday morning and received a 21-month sentence he can serve at the same time as the four years he already is serving for child abuse.

Timothy Foxworth, 25, was convicted of child abuse for causing injuries that nearly killed his son. Foxworth argued the injuries were sustained by a fall of 2 to 3 feet from a bathtub. There were no witnesses, but Foxworth and his son were alone when the boy was injured.

The state charged him with aggravated child abuse, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, but the jury convicted him of child abuse, a lesser offense that does not require a finding that the victim suffered great bodily harm. Judge Elijah Smiley sentenced Foxworth to four years in prison.

Foxworth’s ex-wife, Shelby Foxworth, called the verdict a joke at the time and said her son will suffer as a result of his injuries for the rest of his life. She said Monday she found out last week that her son, who is now 19 months old, will need another surgery to repair his skull next month.

Shelby Foxworth said she had not been notified of the plea until she was contacted by a reporter, and she was “extremely upset” with Smiley for a sentence that requires her ex-husband to serve “not even an extra day.”

“A murderer should be so lucky to come up and get Judge Smiley, because he’ll only get two years,” she said.

Investigators with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office also charged Foxworth with grand theft, burglary of a dwelling while armed and burglary of a conveyance at the time of his arrest on the aggravated child abuse charge. In that incident he broke into a house and stole a handgun and some electronics.

Shelby Foxworth caught him leaving the home he burglarized on several occasions, according to court records, but she said her cooperation in that case was not a result of vindictiveness after her son was injured. She said it took some time before she came to believe Foxworth hurt her son.

“What wife, what mother, could come to terms with the fact that her husband almost murdered her 2-week-old son?” she said.

Timothy Foxworth pleaded no contest to burglary of a dwelling Monday morning, and Smiley sentenced him to serve 21 months concurrent to the child abuse sentence.

Scrutiny for expert

On Monday afternoon, the state turned up the heat on an expert witness who testified for Timothy Foxworth in his trial.

John Lloyd testified as an expert in biometrics, and he told the jury he believed Timothy Foxworth’s explanation for his son’s injuries — the short fall — to be the cause of the injuries. Prosecutor Bob Sombathy attacked Lloyd’s representation of his credentials during the trial, forcing him to admit he’s not a physician.

A website advertising his services lists Lloyd as a professor of medicine, which Lloyd also testified he is not.  Lloyd was paid $300 an hour for his work on the Timothy Foxworth case.

State Attorney Glenn Hess reacted to the verdict, in part, by saying Lloyd had been “discredited across the country.” In a letter to The News Herald, Lloyd said the jury reached a just verdict and that Hess reacted to a less than “fully victorious outcome” by resorting to insulting him.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office arrested Lloyd on perjury charges less than a week after his letter appeared. The State Attorney’s Office charged him with two counts of perjury and a count of misrepresenting his academic credentials, but in court Monday, Assistant State Attorney Megan Teeple said she had filed an amended charging document.

“There are now 15 total counts,” Teeple told Judge Michael Overstreet, who has been presiding over the case since Smiley has been recused. Smiley has been listed as a material witness in the state’s case against Lloyd.

The amended information was not available Monday, but the Clerk of Courts website indicates there are now 14 counts of perjury in addition to the count of misrepresentation of credentials.

Teeple has asked Overstreet to allow the state to present evidence from other cases in which Lloyd has testified as an expert in order to refute a defense that Lloyd was simply mistaken in some of his claims, according to court records.

Lloyd is scheduled for trial in August.