Tennessee
Tennessee officers accused of shielding a man committing sex crimes. Police deny extortion
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal lawsuit claims police officers took thousands of dollars from a businessman in their Tennessee city in exchange for obstructing efforts to investigate allegations that he was sexually assaulting multiple women for years. The police department has denied any wrongdoing.
The extortion claim involving several Johnson City Police officers appears in court filings from a federal lawsuit accusing building contractor Sean Williams — who is now in custody on state and federal criminal charges — of drugging and raping women in the East Tennessee community from 2018 to 2021 while police did little to investigate him.
There was “either an implied or explicit agreement” that the officers would shield Williams, “permitting 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 claims months ago, but their May 14 filing makes the claims more explicit by alleging that banking documents back the assertions. The same lawyers also revealed, in April, that they have provided hundreds of pages of information for a federal public corruption investigation of the police department.
Williams awaits trial on state charges including child rape, aggravated sexual battery 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’s also charged with escape, after authorities said he kicked the window out 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 a request for comment emailed by The Associated Press.
Erick Herrin, an attorney for the city and multiple officers who were sued, said all 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.
“There has been no evidence presented to support allegations of corruption by the Johnson City Police Department, and we welcome any investigation that could dispel such claims,” the city said.
The May 14 filing claims Williams’ business partner, referred to as Female 4, opened shell companies disguised as subcontractors and transferred thousands of dollars from Williams’ business, Glass and Concrete Contracting LLC. The money was laundered so she could take “owner draws” to pay $2,000 a week to some Johnson City Police officers, who had also seized cash from Williams’ safe, the document alleges.
The plaintiffs point to bank records, saying that for instance, during a two-week period in June 2022, Female 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 per day, “likely in an effort to evade mandatory suspicious activity.”
In a filing in March, the plaintiffs said Williams himself described the extortion in a message from jail in September 2023. They say he used a contraband cellphone to send the messages to a coconspirator who then posted them on Facebook. One mentioned weekly payments of $2,000 to officers using fraudulent 1099 tax documents and “forged owner draws.”
In a court filing in response, Female 4’s attorney said her communications with Williams have been infrequent since their personal relationship ended in 2017. The filing says the Facebook post was made by “someone using the name of Sean Williams” and says she has no relevant knowledge about the allegations and doesn’t have any relevant documents.
The attorney for Female 4 did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The local district attorney, who is prosecuting Tennessee’s charges against Williams, declined to comment on the extortion accusations, citing an ongoing investigation, and didn’t specify whether or not they’re looking into extortion claims.
The lawsuits say Williams’ crimes continued even after Jane Doe 1 survived a fall from the window of his fifth story apartment in September 2020. Officers investigating the fall found ample evidence of sexual assaults in his 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 U.S. attorney’s office, was brought in as a liaison with city authorities. She also filed a federal lawsuit against the city. She says she gathered substantial evidence that Williams had been dealing drugs and was credibly accused of sexually assaulting and raping multiple women, but the police refused to investigate further, and botched her effort to arrest him on an April 2021 federal felon-possessing-ammunition charge, letting him flee.
The city rebutted Dahl’s claims in a statement that pointed to prosecutorial delays.
Williams wasn’t arrested until April 2023, when a campus police officer in North Carolina found him asleep 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 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 on the folders were consistent with first names on the “Raped” list found in his 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 prompted the city in the summer of 2022 to order an outside investigation into how officers handled sexual assault investigations. And in November 2022, the U.S. 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 record management; had insufficient training and policies, and sometimes showed issues with gender-based stereotypes and bias.
The city said it began improving the department’s performance while awaiting the audit’s findings, including following the district attorney’s new sexual assault investigation protocol; reviewing investigative policies and procedures; creating a “comfortable space” for victim interviews and increasing funding for officer training and a new records management system.
The Tennessee Lady Vols are now off to the College World Series after defeating the Georgia Bulldogs in the second game of what could have been a three-game series. The Lady Vols won the first game off the back of a gutsy performance by Karlyn Pickens, and many of their batters had a great outing.
In game two, the score was 2-0, as the Lady Vols scored off a two-run shot from Sophia Knight. Knight is one of the better players on the team for the Lady Vols, as she hit a home run in game one and had a home run in game two. This game was won without the Lady Vols best pitcher even coming to the mound, as the Lady Vols didn’t even use Karlyn Pickens in this contest.
Even though the Lady Vols are the team playing in their home stadium, they didn’t have the advantage in their game against the Lady Bulldogs, which means the Lady Vols had to pitch to a solid batting squad in the bottom of the ninth, who are also notorious for having a rally. The Bulldogs started the inning with a triple, and the batter later reached home after a wild pitch from Sage Mardjetko.
There would be one out with none on, and the Lady Vols’ star pitcher gained her swagger back with a nasty strikeout that completely fooled the batter on, although, had she gotten a hold of the ball, it likely would have been one to go over. Goodwin would come to the plate with the Lady Vols having a chance to punch their ticket to the college world series, which is exactly what happened off the back of a 1-2 count and a hit to the second baseman, who sat her down for the rest of the season.
The Lady Vols will now await the bracket.
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An east Tennessee school board member who told a teenage girl, “God – you’re hot,” on video at a public meeting in April has been charged with assault.
State prosecutors on 18 May charged 59-year-old Keith Ervin under a Tennessee statute that outlaws “intentionally or knowingly [causing] physical contact with another [that] a reasonable person would regard … as extremely offensive or provocative”.
Tennessee considers that offense a class B misdemeanor, which upon conviction can carry up to six months in jail and a maximum $500 fine.
Ervin’s charge came after his participation in a 2 April meeting of the Washington county school board to which he was first elected in 2006. At that gathering, in plain view of a camera capturing video for the public board’s YouTube channel, Ervin gazed at a female student seated next to him, placed his left hand on her right shoulder, and said, “God – you’re hot. Did you know that? Damn.”
She laughed uncomfortably as he leaned in and wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, continuing, “Where do you go to school at?” She provided the name of her school, and he rejoined, “All right.”
Other people in the room could be heard laughing at the end of the exchange. And the Washington school district’s superintendent, Jerry Boyd, visibly smiled while on the other side of the student.
Local media reports describe the girl as a high school senior and a student representative on the board. Her father later went on social media and criticized Ervin’s behavior as “disturbing and inappropriate”.
In that statement, reported by Tennessee news outlet WJHL, the girl’s father said neither he nor her mother believed Ervin “should be anywhere near students” – and he expressed incredulity that the moment passed “without immediate accountability”.
Ervin provided his own statement to WJHL in which he contended he was not “always good with words”. He also maintained that he would not purposefully offend anyone, though he acknowledged the video of him and the girl looked bad.
A Change.org petition almost immediately calling for the dismissals of Boyd and Ervin from their roles has since gathered more than 7,400 signatures. Ervin’s fellow school board members voted to censure him during a special meeting called on 8 April as outrage surrounding his filmed remarks spread beyond Washington county.
The female student at the center of the assault case addressed the county school board directly at a 7 May meeting – and she let its members know she was unimpressed with their handling of the matter, Tennessee’s Knoxville News Sentinel reported. She accused board members of cowardice while rejecting apologies from them, saying: “I do not forgive you.”
She added, “Thank you for teaching me that no one will stand up for me besides myself. Thank you for showing this community what you believe it means to protect our children.”
After he was charged in Washington county circuit court, Ervin was served with a criminal summons ordering him to appear at a hearing tentatively scheduled for 7 August.
Ervin did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
His Washington school district biography says he is a self-employed dairy farmer by trade. The biography also notes that Ervin has two daughters who previously graduated from the school attended by the student listed as the victim in his pending assault case.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — The attempted murder case against Tennessee livestreamer Dalton Eatherly, known online as “Chud the Builder,” has now been bound over to the grand jury following a court hearing on Wednesday in Montgomery County.
According to court officials, Eatherly’s case was moved out of General Sessions Court and will now proceed in Circuit Court. His previously scheduled May 26 hearing has been canceled.
Eatherly’s bond was also lowered from $1.25 million to $1 million, according to updated court information on Wednesday.
WATCH: Here’s all we know so far about the controversial, arrested streamer known as “Chud the Builder”
The 28-year-old faces multiple felony charges, including attempted murder, after investigators said he shot another man during a confrontation outside the Montgomery County Courthouse on May 13.
Authorities previously said the shooting happened in broad daylight outside the courthouse complex after an altercation between two men escalated into gunfire. Both Eatherly and the other man suffered gunshot wounds.
The case has drawn widespread attention due to Eatherly’s controversial online presence. Known online as “Chud the Builder,” Eatherly built a following through confrontational livestreams filmed across Tennessee, including in Nashville and Clarksville.
Before the courthouse shooting, Eatherly had also recently been arrested in Nashville after police said he refused to pay a more than $370 bill at a steakhouse following a disturbance inside the restaurant.
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Eatherly remains jailed in Montgomery County as the criminal case moves forward in Circuit Court.
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