Officers deny extorting contractor accused of sexually assaulting women for years

A federal lawsuit claims law enforcement officers took thousands of dollars from a businessman in his Tennessee town in exchange for obstructing efforts to investigate allegations that he had sexually assaulted multiple women over the years. The police department denied any wrongdoing.

The extortion allegation involving several Johnson City police officers appears in court filings in a federal lawsuit accusing contractor Sean Williams — who is now in custody on state and federal criminal charges — of drugging and raping women in the East Tennessee community in 2018 to 2021, while police did little to investigate him.

There was “an implicit or explicit agreement” that officers would protect Williams, “allowing him to continue his criminal activities of abuse and trafficking with impunity,” say lawyers for nine women, listed as Jane Does 1-9, who are suing the city.

These plaintiffs raised the extortion allegations months ago, but their May 14 filing makes the claims more explicit, claiming that bank documents support the claims. The same lawyers also revealed in April that they provided hundreds of pages of information to a federal public investigation into corruption in the police department.

Williams is awaiting trial on state charges, including child rape, aggravated sexual assault and especially aggravated sexual exploitation, and federal charges, including three counts of production of child sexual abuse material and one count of distribution of cocaine. He is also accused of escape after authorities said he kicked out the window of a federal transport van and was caught in Florida more than a month later.

The law firm representing Williams did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from The Associated Press.

Erick Herrin, an attorney for the city and several police officers who have been sued, said all of the defendants deny the allegations, but court rules limit what else he can say. In a statement, the city said it would welcome an investigation.

“No evidence has been presented to support allegations of corruption by the Johnson City Police Department and we welcome any investigation that could dispel such allegations,” the city said.

Claims explained

The May 14 lawsuit claims that Williams’ business partner, known as Woman 4, opened shell companies disguised as subcontractors and transferred thousands of dollars from Williams’ company, Glass and Concrete Contracting LLC. The money was laundered so she could make “landlord withdrawals” to pay $2,000 a week to some Johnson City police officers who had also seized money from Williams’ safe, the document alleges.

The plaintiffs point to bank records, saying that, for example, during a two-week period in June 2022, Woman 4 withdrew nearly $30,000 in cash from the company’s account. They say the woman appears to have withdrawn no more than $10,000 a day, “probably in an effort to avoid mandatory (reporting) suspicious activity.”

In a lawsuit filed in March, the plaintiffs said Williams himself described the extortion in a message from prison in September 2023. They say he used a contraband cellphone to send the messages to a co-conspirator who posted them on Facebook. One mentioned $2,000 weekly payments to police officers using fraudulent 1099 tax documents and “forged landlord withdrawals.”

In response to the court filing, Woman 4’s attorney said her communications with Williams have been infrequent since their personal relationship ended in 2017. The lawsuit says the Facebook post was made by “someone using the name Sean Williams.” and says she has no relevant information. knowledge of the allegations and does not have relevant documents.

Woman 4’s attorney did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The local district attorney, who is prosecuting the Tennessee charges against Williams, declined to comment on the racketeering allegations, citing an ongoing investigation, and did not specify whether they are investigating racketeering allegations.

An alleged victim fell from a fifth-floor window.

The lawsuits say Williams’ crimes continued even after Jane Doe 1 survived a fall from the window of her fifth-floor apartment in September 2020. Officers investigating the fall found ample evidence of sexual assaults in her apartment, including a list of names labeled “Raped.” ” Even when that woman went public, Williams’ identity was protected as “Robert Voe.”

Kateri Lynne Dahl, a former special prosecutor in the East Tennessee State’s Attorney’s office, was hired as a liaison with city officials. She also filed a federal lawsuit against the city. She says she gathered substantial evidence that Williams was dealing drugs and was credibly accused of sexually assaulting and raping several women, but police refused to investigate further and failed in their effort to arrest him on an ammunition possession charge. of a federal criminal from April 2021, letting him escape.

The city refuted Dahl’s claims in a statement that pointed to delays in the legal process.

Williams was not arrested until April 2023, when a campus police officer in North Carolina found him sleeping in his car and learned of the federal warrant. An affidavit says a search of the car found — along with drugs and about $100,000 in cash — digital storage devices with more than 5,000 images of child sexual abuse, as well as photos and videos of 52 female victims being sexually assaulted. by Williams at his home in Johnson City. apartment while they were in an “obvious state of unconsciousness”.

Many of the videos were stored in labeled folders, and at least a half-dozen names in the folders were consistent with the first names on the “Rape” list found in her apartment two and a half years earlier, the affidavit states.

Meanwhile, public outcry over the police response to complaints from a growing number of women led the city in summer 2022 to order an external investigation into officers’ handling of sexual assault investigations. And in November 2022, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a federal sex trafficking investigation.

Findings from the city’s third-party audit, released in 2023, include that police conducted inconsistent, ineffective and incomplete investigations; relied on inadequate records management; they had insufficient training and policies and sometimes had problems with gender-based stereotypes and prejudices.

The city said it began improving the department’s performance while awaiting audit findings, including following the district attorney’s new sexual assault investigation protocol; review investigative policies and procedures; create a “comfortable space” for victim interviews and increase funding for officer training and a new records management system.