Johnson City agrees to pay $28 million to resolve a class action lawsuit brought by a woman who allegedly failed to investigate the sexual assault and conspires to protect serial rapists from justice. did.
The settlement, which city officials call the most expensive in Johnson City’s history, must be approved by a federal judge before the process of distributing funds to a potential pool of more than 400 victims, including children. It won’t be.
The settlement ends a lawsuit that has surfaced a series of explosive allegations against the Johnson Police Department since it was first filed in June 2023.
Some of the lawsuit claims include police violating federal sex trafficking laws and engaged in a conspiracy that included kickbacks to protect current Johnson City businessman Sean Williams. is.
“Intestinal Punch”: Woman accusing Johnson City officials of denounce victims in serial rapist incidents
Williams was arrested in 2023 while sleeping in a car in North Carolina. His arrest led to the recovery of images showing Williams sexually abusing 67 women and children inside a Johnson City condo, court records said. The images include the victim who reported the assault to Johnson City police, the lawsuit alleges.
Williams is currently behind a bar waiting for three counts of child porn production on February 24th and one count of federal custody escape. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors filed a recommendation for a ’95 prison sentence.
As part of the settlement of the suit, allegations involving individuals and previous police officers’ actions related to Williams, including allegations of corruption, bribery and sex trafficking, will be dismissed, and the plaintiff in the case will file a legal application. Let’s do. They say they faced substantial risks that they were unable to meet their burden of proof for those allegations.
“Our clients could not be more satisfied,” read the statement from Vanessa Baehr-Jones, a California-based advocate attorney for abuse survivors.
“This takes a step forward not only for them but also for the community as they can achieve the closure measure and begin the healing process,” the statement said. Attorney Elizabeth Kramer also served as an attorney in the case.
City officials who voted to approve the settlement on Thursday said they did so to avoid potentially “financially catastrophic” decisions. Johnson City Commissioner Joe Wise said Thursday that $28 million will be paid in part by insurance, partly from the city’s budget, “disrupt or threaten ongoing urban services.” Ta.
“Based on the potential class action lawsuits and the number of horrible crimes Sean Williams committed, Johnson City faced considerable financial risk if the matter went to trial,” Johnson City said. The statement said. “The settlement is important, but it limits the potential exposure of Johnson City.
In an email statement, the current and former officers named in the lawsuit said the charges against them were “sinister” and “absolutely false.”
“We absolutely want to be clear. No officers are engaged in any kind of corrupt conduct,” the joint statement said. “They never turned their eyes on Williams.”
“The allegations of heinous corruption and sex trafficking are absolutely false, and individuals are pleased that the plaintiff appears to have admitted that they are unable to ultimately fulfill the burden of proof,” the statement said. Ta.
Johnson City still faces two additional lawsuits relating to police misconduct, including victims of sexual assault and possible federal corruption investigations.
One lawsuit was brought last year by a woman who allegedly pushed her the window into a fifth story that caused a catastrophic and permanent injury in a failed sexual assault.
Report: Johnson City Police failed to commit sexual assault victim
Johnson City Police Department investigated, arrested or indicted Williams, deliberately destroying the evidence and allowed Williams to destroy the evidence in exchange for cash, the lawsuit alleges – Johnson City Police Department It reflects the lawsuit in which the case was paid in the opposite direction.
Kateri Dahl, a former federal prosecutor who served as a liaison with the Johnson City Police Department, urged her to take action, claiming that police did not investigate allegations of sexual assault against Williams in 2022. He filed another whistleblower lawsuit, alleging that this was the case.
“If the government is “absolutely wrong,” Johnson City taxpayers can make their own conclusions about why the government will pay $28 million to settle the claim,” said Dahl’s lawyer. One Hugh Eastwood said in a statement.
The Johnson City Police Department is also the subject of a federal public corruption investigation related to Williams’ handling, and earlier filings of the ongoing case revealed.
The lawyer representing the woman who filed the lawsuit has been called “Jane Doe” in the legal application and surpassed 520 pages of email and attachments to the Johnson Police Department’s “Prosecutor’s Team for Federal Public Corruption Investigation.” Court records stated. .
For more than a year, the Department of Justice has refused to review or reject existing investigations.
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