MOULTRIE, Ga. – An Ellenton man whose escape may have been one of the shortest in history after he wrecked his getaway vehicle in front of the jail was sentenced on Wednesday to a 20-year prison sentence.

Xavier Lavare Sims, infamous for a 2011 bomb threat that closed down the Colquitt County School System for a day and panicked the community, was being held at the time of the escape on charges related to the beating of his wife and her infant child.

The 30-year-old Sims pleaded guilty on Wednesday to aggravated assault on a police officer in connection with the escape and two counts of aggravated battery in the attack on his wife and stepson.

Colquitt County Superior Court Judge Brian McDaniel sentenced Sims to serve 20 years in prison for the assault with a van on a sheriff’s deputy and 20-year sentences to be served concurrently in each of the battery cases.

While awaiting trial in the Oct. 29 beating of Aquandria Harmon, 24, and his 6-month-old stepson at her 820 Northside Drive apartment, Sims stole a Colquitt County government work truck. During the Nov. 11 escapade, Sims nearly struck an officer, shot across four lanes of traffic and wrecked in a ditch, and was chased down within a matter of minutes by officers on foot.

In the escape case, Sims also entered guilty pleas on charges of theft by taking, possession of tools for the commission of a crime and two counts of interference with government property. Prosecutors dropped a lengthy list of misdemeanor traffic charges, including driving without license, reckless driving, failure to maintain lane, driving on the wrong side of roadway and four others.

Sims was able to get outside the jail building through a door left open while maintenance workers were working inside the building. He got in the truck and nearly struck officers as he sped away from the facility, crossing all four traffic lanes of Veterans Parkway North before wrecking the 2001 Ford Econoline van in the ditch.

During the Oct. 29, 2016, domestic violence incident, police said that Sims beat Harmon unconscious and then attacked Jacob Moore, fracturing the infant’s temple and causing a contusion in the same area of the head and brain. The couple had argued earlier in the day.

Harmon, who suffered a broken nose and multiple bruises in the attack, woke up when she heard the baby crying to see Sims trying to punch the baby. When she picked baby Moore up,  Sims hit the infant in the side of the head.

Harmon’s 14-year-old brother helped her get out of the house with the baby. Two other children, ages 3 and 5, also were in the residence at the time. Prosecutors also dismissed a number of misdemeanor charges related to that case and a felony count of cruelty to children.

Prior to his capture on Nov. 2, Sims called the county 911 system multiple times over several days, giving false information of his whereabouts. After investigators returned calls using their cell phones, Sims then called those numbers repeatedly. When he was captured, police found him hiding in part of a central air conditioning unit at a residence in the Norman Park area.

Police were familiar with that game, as Sims called police at least two additional times after making his August 2011 call to the Colquitt County E-911 Center in which he claimed to have planted a bomb in an unspecified school. His repeated calls that day eventually led police to a relative’s house in Doerun where Sims was found hiding inside the exterior wall of the residence.

When Sims made the bomb threat, he told the 911 operator that he was taking “revenge” on a Moultrie Police Department detective who was investigating him in connection with a statutory rape case.

After his escape attempt from the county jail, Sims apparently was not through needling law enforcement. He was accused of damaging a fire system sprinkler head in his cell on Thanksgiving Day that activated the sprinkler system and caused significant flooding in the booking area of the jail.

Sims was sentenced in 2012 to 30 months’ federal prison time and three years’ supervised relief after he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia to making the Aug. 23, 2011, bomb threat.