A Tennessee city agreed Thursday to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit that said police deliberately botched investigations into a suspect accused in civil cases of drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of women.
If approved by a federal judge, the settlement would resolve the lawsuit filed by women under “Jane Doe” pseudonyms against the city and individual police officers over sexual assault allegations against Sean Williams from 2018 to 2021.
The city and the officers have long denied corruption allegations. Before commissioners voted on the settlement, an attorney representing the city said continuing the case posed a financial risk.
“Johnson City does not blame these victims whatsoever,” said Commissioner Jenny Brock. “It was Sean Williams that is to blame for all of this.”
Williams is in prison for producing images of child sexual abuse and breaking out of an inmate transfer van in 2023. He has not yet been criminally charged as a result of the women’s allegations.
The lawsuit includes a broader settlement class of up to 400 women, including minors, who lodged any report of sexual abuse or trafficking to Johnson City Police from 2018 through December 2022, due to accusations of gender discrimination, Jonathan Lakey, an attorney representing the city, told commissioners. Insurance would cover part of the settlement, he said.
The women in the case have been able to gain some closure and can begin healing, said Vanessa Baehr-Jones, an attorney representing the plaintiffs and broader class of women.
“It has been a painful journey for these women; it has been a hard journey; and it has ultimately led to a successful and empowering end,” Baehr-Jones wrote in an statement.
The lawsuit is one of three that accuse the Johnson City Police Department of refusing to properly investigate evidence that Williams was drugging and raping women in their east Tennessee community for years. Williams has told The Tennessean he was framed by law enforcement to cover up a broader public corruption scandal.
A former federal prosecutor and a woman who plunged from Williams’ fifth-floor apartment window filed the other federal lawsuits. The Jane Does case alleges Williams paid police to obstruct investigations into sexual assault allegations against him.
The former prosecutor’s lawsuit said police deliberately botched her effort to arrest Williams on a federal felon-possessing-ammunition charge in April 2021, enabling him to flee. He was on the run when police arrested him in North Carolina two years later. The city countered that the prosecutor took five months to obtain an indictment when police requested one in 2020.
Attorneys for the officers sued by the Jane Does said those officers “never turned a blind eye to Williams in any way” and that the department’s actions led to Williams’ capture and conviction. As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs are expected to say in court filings that there was a high risk of not proving allegations of corruption, bribery, conspiracy and obstruction of enforcing the law against sex trafficking, among other accusations.
“Hopefully, with the City’s settlement, everyone can put this behind them and begin to heal, including the victims of Sean Williams and the officers who were wrongfully accused,” the officers’ attorneys wrote Thursday.
A Western Carolina University campus police officer found Williams asleep in his car in 2023 while on the lam, according to a police report.
His vehicle contained cocaine, methamphetamine, about $100,000 and digital storage devices with more than 5,000 images of child sexual abuse. Williams was also in possession of photos and videos showing him sexually assaulting at least 52 women at his Johnson City apartment while they were in an “obvious state of unconsciousness,” police wrote.
At least half a dozen names on the folders of videos of women were consistent with first names on a list labeled “Raped” that Johnson City officers had previously found in his apartment, a police affidavit said.
After being charged for the child sexual abuse images, Williams in October 2023 escaped from a van taking him from a Kentucky detention center to a hearing in Tennessee. Authorities caught him in Florida more than a month later.
Jurors convicted him in July of the escape, punishable by up to five years in prison. In November, the 53-year-old was convicted of the child sexual abuse images charges, carrying 15 years minimum in prison for each of three counts. His sentencing is Feb. 24.
In Tennessee state court, Williams faces additional sexual charges involving minors. In a North Carolina federal court, he’s charged with possessing child sexual abuse images and illegal drugs.
Johnson City ordered an outside investigation that found police conducted inconsistent, ineffective and incomplete sexual assault investigations; inadequately managed records; had insufficient training and policies; and sometimes showed gender-based stereotypes and bias, according to results released in 2023.
The city said it began improving the department before the findings, including following a new sexual assault investigation protocol and creating a “comfortable space” for victim interviews.
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