State's ready.
I'm Kim Ogg Harris County District Attorney. Welcome.
We are joined today by HPD, Chief Guzman
and
his commander over sex crimes.
They also have brought two detectives who've been working on what is believed to be
a serial rapist,
uh,
defendant Eric Sims,
37 years old has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault,
his predatory behavior
with the victims in these cases, along with
his NASA credentials frequently mentioned to gain credibility with his victims
and his international travel. All are clues that could indicate
further victims who are out there.
And the purpose of this press conference is to encourage
anyone who may have had contact with
uh defendant Sim
and
been victimized.
We're asking them to come forward.
We know what a challenge it can be for sexual assault survivors.
And we want to encourage you that
whether a case is filed or not.
Both HPD and the District Attorney's office
offer victims support services along with advocacy.
The nature of these offenses is so personal
and so
predatory
that
we felt it was important
that we tell the public
and ask the public to
take a look. A long hard look at Mr Sim
and let us know
if
you've not just been in contact with him but been victimized by him.
The assaults involve that the assaults
that are charged involve six different survivors
and they occurred during a narrow time frame between 2019 and 2022.
There could be more of you out there
that this has happened to since then
and we want to offer our full support
and encouragement
for you all to come forward.
It's important that Mr Sim be held accountable for his actions.
That is the responsibility of the prosecutors who I'm proud to
say I'm joined by our adult sex crimes uh division chief Janet
Oswald along with Tiffany Larson
and they work for Denise
Oncken, our special,
our special victims bureau chief.
Uh at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Chief Guzman of HPV.
Thank you district attorney to Mog
and Ad AJ
Oold
our law enforcement partners and media partners.
I'm assistant chief
of
August Ma with the Eastern Police Department.
And today we're here for the survivors and we know this is very difficult.
We stand with you.
We will be here to empower
and support you when you come forward
right now.
We know of six survivors in the city and the suspect discharged in all the incidents.
The investigation is ongoing.
We are working with the DAS office and our local law enforcement partners.
We still need the help public, the public's help Excuse me.
I know if you know something,
please contact us.
I'll turn it over to Detective Howton
for more on this case and the numbers to call.
Thank you.
Hi, good afternoon. Uh, my name is Detective Houghton.
I'm with the Houston Police Department, Special Victims Division.
Um I want to start out by, thank you
and Chief Guzman.
Um, our law enforcement partners and our media for being here today.
Uh, as mentioned before, we do know our suspect.
We do unfortunately believe there are more survivors out there.
We know it is difficult for you to relive and to come forward.
But we want to reassure you that we are here to support you,
empower you and help you as best as we can.
Uh as mentioned earlier,
he is Ericsson is charged in six sexual assaults at the moment.
Um The survivors he have met on these six charges.
Uh he has met through dating apps and dating websites
over multiple years.
He frequently uses these dating apps
to communicate with multiple individuals at the same time
and is portraying himself as somebody who wants a committed relationship.
Our investigation indicates there are possibly more survivors
in the Houston area as well as across the country and possibly internationally.
Our
investigation is still active and ongoing
and we're just working to build the strongest case possible.
If you are a survivor, please feel free to reach out to myself or my partner,
Detective
Pak at 7133081176.
And I will turn it over to 88.
Awesome.
This is your first and last name,
Detective Kaitlyn Houghton, Katelynho
WTO N
Thank you.
I'm assistant district attorney Janna Oswald.
I'm the division chief of the adult sex crimes division.
I as well as Tiffany Larson will be handling the six charges that we have filed.
We have been to court on these charges twice. Now,
the defendant has, um, gotten a bond by law
and has made those bonds with very strict bond conditions.
Um We are just here before you today
to reach out to the public.
Uh There's any other survivors,
people that know other survivors to please come forward.
Even if you don't feel that
what happened to you raises to the level of a
crime just felt that it was a bad situation.
We still would like to hear from you and provide
support and advocacy if you have any additional information.
All right.
HPD wants
to help
the District Attorney's office, wants to help
survivors
find
that once they report and seek justice, many do feel
as though
they have helped prevent
other potential
victims
from someone like Mr Sim.
So as all of us have said,
we understand the difficulty of anyone who
survived a sexual assault coming forward.
We want to thank you in advance for having the courage to do it.
These six individual women
have themselves done exactly that.
And we fully support them
and look forward to holding Mr Sim
as accountable as we possibly can
given the sentencing range of the crimes that he's charged
with and the number of crimes that he's charged with
question
uh
were all these on the Hinge Dating app?
And did all these salts occur in his personal residence?
And are you able to go back into his dating history profile to
try and maybe reach out to potential victims now?
So all of the six were different dating apps. So, not just hinge Dating app,
all of the assaults of the six we have charged were occurred at his residence
and with regards to reaching out to various women on these dating
apps through any sort of information we get with a search warrant
um varies. Uh Sometimes it is
re traumatizing for us to reach out to victims.
Um personally,
unless we have other information as to why we would need to reach out to them.
But which is the reason why we're here and asking for those women
to come forward so they can control their own involvement with law enforcement
because that is also a very personal and traumatizing
thing when law enforcement reaches out to them.
But we will be looking at the evidence that we have
and reaching out to any uh potential witnesses in
accordance to the six cases that we have.
Ok. So no, no, in terms of going back to the
dating
app
we will have the dating history and depending on
what that dating history is able to tell us.
Each individual app provides as much information as they can. We've never had
an exact amount of information from every single app. Some apps are better at
historically providing data than others.
So it depends on what we're able to get back from those search warrants and
what that information is able to provide us in reaching out to those other women.
Do you have any idea how long he maybe
has been doing this or how many potential victims?
There are no right now, we have six charged. Um What we have is 2019 to 2022.
We do know that he's been on dating apps previous and since the 2022 date,
all we can say is beyond that. We don't,
we don't know.
Right.
And he also does travel outside of the state,
outside of the county and outside of the country,
right?
If there's information that they can provide that
they think is pertinent to our investigation,
we would be welcoming that information.
We want a thorough investigation
in all six of these cases and any other potential cases that may exist.
Uh Last I think we heard from you all, there were only two charges and
he
was out on a half million dollar bond for those two. Has the bond changed at all?
Now that you've got six on
not on the two. So the bond on the two was uh 500,000 in total.
Um
And when
those bonds were presented the information to the
judges that were looking into other extraneous,
that's in that paperwork.
So that's the reason why those bonds were as high as they were.
The additional four cases were put at $25,000 apiece,
given that 500 has already been placed upon it.
So he has a total of
terrible mass, $700,000 worth of or $600,000 worth of bonds
at this time.
Remember that's $70,000. If it's surety bond, right? It's 10%.
But the bond conditions are um
pretty extreme bond conditions on 24 hour house arrest
and monitoring any sort of computers and things that he has
in your time with the DAS office.
Have you seen another case of this magnitude with this many
victims of sexual assault that you believe there are more?
Yes, I mean, Tiffany, I have dealt a lot with child abuse cases.
And so typically what you believe there is,
there's probably a lot more complainants that are not coming out,
especially when you get older defendants with a lot of pedophilia to them.
Tiffany Larson has handled quite a few serial rapists um
in her time with adult sex crimes.
Uh And typically we know that when we have three or four charges,
there's likely more complainants out there, especially given the type of um,
behaviors and patterns we are seeing
and it, it looked like only,
I don't mean to say only, but that one of the six thus far
she was drugged
or did I
miss it?
We, we, at this time out of the six only have one that would be an intoxication
um based off defense.
The other uh five, there was not evidence or articulation of an intoxication
based defense.
Um OK.
Do we know if the victims in all of these cases
uh were from Asian descent or Hispanic or all different cultures,
all different cultures?
And do we know any other country? Like for example, Mexico has he traveled to Mexico?
We do know that he's had frequent international travel.
I, I don't have a complete log of where he has traveled.
We do know he travels internationally and throughout the United States.
And can you elaborate on just how he was using his NASA credentials in,
in his communications with
the victims?
I want to be clear that there was nothing that he was doing. Like when
you know, with in relationship to NASA,
he was just stating that his job and profession was as a NASA engineer,
just like you would put any other profession out on the Dating App.
We do believe that when people are um
have a
career or an identity through something that's trusted as NASA or
the D A's office or law enforcement or the church that
does gain trust pretty immediately just based off of the type
of employment a person has and we believe that was utilized
um in his dating
history.
I'd like to invite Detective
Houghton just to talk about the international angle.
Yes. Um To answer your question on international travel.
Um There is uh numerous countries that he has traveled to.
Um just a few we have is Japan
Canada the UK.
Um but there's um a list like she said, we don't have in front of us,
but there's AAA long list of international travels.
So we can relate to him as a human trafficking tool.
No human trafficking is when
um you are
bringing people over across the county line,
across state borders across international borders for the purpose
of um monetizing sexual behavior or monetizing work.
That's not what we're having here at all. These are simply sexual assault.
I'm not saying simply these are sexual assault.
There's not a human trafficking component.
Do you believe that in any of these cases or any, any of the victims are minors?
Any anybody? No,
no,
we don't at this time. Have any minors.
You,
you don't believe that there might be a minors
maybe from the six complainants that we have,
they were all adults.
They were all on the dating apps of 18 years or older,
age appropriate age for him to be reaching out to them.
Um They had been on a few dates prior to a sexual assault.
Um all typical dating behavior.
So we have at this time no indication that there would be
behavior or interaction with minors for the purpose of sexual assault.
Oswald Os
Wald, first name Jana Jann. A
have the woman given any indication why they're all coming out. Now,
I think that that's individual to each of them. I do believe that when um
one or more than one complainant comes out, it empowers others.
Um It makes them feel not as alone in what they've experienced.
Also, it, in my experience,
um
victims have a tendency not to protect themselves and they'll
come forward when they feel they need to protect others.
And so when you see one victim come out, others will come out
and it's more in a effort to protect other women
and one follow up on that for HPD.
It looks like one, at least one of these case numbers is from 2019.
Is there any indication that any of these
cases were suspended for lack of personnel?
No, these cases are not part of that suspension.
This is a totally outside,
this isn't related to any of the backbone
and the 2019 cases,
none of these are
sorry.
Uh Last one
I saw one victim um had a rape kit done just one of the six. The others did not.
No.
So it is not uncommon for sexual assault survivors to delay in
their outcry and that goes for Children as well as adults,
it is hard to understand how the brain
um
reacts to trauma
and each person processes that in their own time,
which results sometimes in a delayed outcry.
A sexual assault kit is generated within the 1st 120
hours and that's what we call an acute immediate outcry.
And that's why we only have one sexual assault exam.
It took the other five complainants a little while longer to outcry
and process what they had um been through.
Do why put out the message to
call in more victims? Is it to strengthen the case? Is it so that each woman can feel
that they've got justice because you have a lot we do.
Um
We want to ensure that we have
um
the fullest case possible for when we get to a point of trial or pleading the case out.
I,
I believe that would be what we are doing now is to ensure that we're
getting all the information we're doing as much as we can in this investigation.
Um utilizing the information that we have now to
ensure that we don't have the strongest case.
We have six cases that are good cases.
Uh But just to ensure that we have all the information that we can. So they present
the most full case
uh to the defense in working the case out possibly and then
possibly to a jury if that's where this case is headed.
Any of the prior
arrests or convictions for this.
No.
All right.
I'd like to add something by him.
When we reach out and ask for other victims. It is not to bolster the cases.
We have those cases stand on their own based on
the evidence collected in the testimony of the victim and Survivor
uh along with any other witnesses.
But we think it's very important to
offer people this kind of information.
One to prevent further victimization of women.
And secondly,
to
not just empower but to try and achieve some measure of justice for
anyone else who suffered at the hands of this type of predatory behavior.
By Mr Sim.
We
have you here,
we
have you here. Could we get you, um, just to maybe respond to the re indictment.
I know it's off topic of this but,
um, on the re indictment of Gerald Points today,
just I will individually, but just to respect these victims in this group,
I'd like to do that after this press conference. All right, everybody.
Anything else?
All right. Good to see you, everybody. Thank you.