As parallel criminal and civil lawsuits move forward involving allegations that the Johnson City Police Department conspired to protect a serial rapist, new cases regarding co-conspirators who laundered money to pay extortion payments to police officers move forward. Suspicions have surfaced.
The incident has plagued Johnson City for nearly three years. At the center of the case is local businessman Sean Williams, who is accused of drugging and raping scores of women and sexually exploited children in a long-running sex and drug trafficking conspiracy. However, local police were allegedly bribed to look the other way.
To cover her tracks, Williams’ business partner used a complex scheme of shell companies posing as subcontractors to make weekly extortion payments of $2,000, according to new filings in an ongoing lawsuit. Johnson City Police Department.
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Some of the transactions took place in 2022 while Williams was on the run, and Johnson City police are monitoring his company’s transactions for suspicious activity as part of a formal investigation into his disappearance. There should have been.
Instead, legal filings say some officers continued to extort money from Williams through his business partner, identified in court documents as “Female 4.”
Johnson City police officers also provided police protection to the business partner and conducted special patrols of her home and workplace, according to emails between the officers filed in court.
The new filing alleges that Johnson City police officers “blackmailed Ms. Williams through Female 4, and that she was the principal in opening a dummy business for the purpose of laundering money for police officers.”
An attorney for the unnamed business partner did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The business partner said in a legal response that he had a “personal relationship” with Williams from 2010 to 2017 but “had no frequent contact” with him since then.
Her response, seeking to quash subpoenas for business, social media, text message and other records, also argued that victims’ lawyers are seeking an extensive and burdensome array of documents. The women have not been charged with any crimes.
Lawsuit: Federal authorities investigate Johnson City police for allegedly concealing serial rapist
The allegations are among the latest allegations against Williams, 52, who is currently incarcerated on federal charges of escape, deprivation of custody and production of child pornography.
Williams also faces multiple state charges of child rape. After his arrest in North Carolina last year, police found videos and photographs of him assaulting more than 50 women in his Johnson City apartment. Some of these victims reported the assaults to the Johnson City Police Department but received no help, and have since joined a class-action lawsuit against Johnson City, the department and individual officers.
The lawsuit, filed last year, alleges that some Johnson City police officers hatched a fraudulent scheme to protect Williams after he was accused of sexual assault by multiple women. There is.
Last month, court filings in victims’ lawsuits hinted that a wide-ranging federal corruption investigation was underway. The filing states that the victim’s attorney was cooperating with “the prosecution team in the Johnson City Police Department’s federal public corruption investigation.”
A separate lawsuit filed by former Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Kateri Dahl is set to go to trial later this year in 2022. Dahl filed suit against then-Johnson City Police Chief Carl Turner and the city, alleging they thwarted efforts to investigate sexual assault allegations against Williams.
Johnson city officials denied any wrongdoing.
