67 possible Sean Williams sexual assault victims now

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — With former Johnson City business owner Sean Williams’ federal trial on production of child pornography-related charges weeks away, recently filed court documents reveal the alleged serial rapist is now suspected of sexually assaulting up to at least 67 different women and children.

About Sean Williams’ alleged crimes and related civil cases

The information comes from an affidavit filed in a federal civil lawsuit by Mike Little, an investigator with the First Judicial District Attorney General’s office. Little has been investigating digital evidence allegedly recovered when Williams was arrested on drug charges in Sylva, N.C. on April 30, 2023.

“I have discovered a total of approximately 67 individuals who have either been confirmed as being or were likely to have been victims of sexual assaults by Sean Williams,” Little wrote in his July 16 affidavit.

The document increases by 15 the number of known alleged victims or “likely” victims. It was filed by plaintiffs in a suit against the City of Johnson City and several current and former Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) officers. One of several lawsuits against the city surrounding Williams, this one alleges that JCPD — either corruptly so or otherwise — failed to properly investigate allegations against Williams around 2019-2021.

Johnson City has denied all claims in the federal lawsuits, which now total three.

Williams hasn’t been criminally charged in any rapes of adult women, but he does face separate state and federal counts related to three alleged incidents involving crimes against children.

As U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer described the three upcoming federal counts in Williams’ escape trial last week as: “inducing a minor … to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child pornography.” The trial on those three counts is scheduled to start Aug. 27. If convicted, Williams faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years on each count.

Source of the visual evidence

Authorities in North Carolina allegedly seized digital storage devices (including thumb drives) from Williams when they arrested him. They reportedly discovered folders with video and still image files showing multiple sexual assaults against apparently drugged victims by Williams in his downtown Johnson City apartment. Little has been investigating the evidence since North Carolina authorities provided it to the DA’s office on May 22, 2023, the affidavit reads.

Computer files show 52 Sean Williams alleged rapes

Little filed a search warrant affidavit in June 2023 that indicated files allegedly showing at least 52 different victims. News Channel 11 first revealed the specific scope of Williams’ alleged sexual assaults in a story that ran several weeks before his September 2023 indictments on the federal child pornography charges and simultaneous state charges of child rape and child sexual assault.

Little’s initial June 2023 affidavit also noted that the JCPD itself had seized computers and other digital evidence during a search of Williams’ apartment in September 2020. Police were investigating Mikayla Evans’ fall from his fifth-floor apartment at the time.

Despite the urging of Assistant U.S. Attorney Kat Dahl, the JCPD elected not to search Williams’ computer files in late 2020. Transcripts of a meeting with then-JCPD Chief Karl Turner and Capt. Kevin Peters that Dahl recorded on Dec. 8, 2020 show her expressing concerns “whether or not this would be the type of individual to have, like, child porn on his computer,” Dahl said in the transcript.

“If somebody can find the nexus for us to get the search warrant for the computer, hey, I’m more than willing to do it,” Peters responds. In the end, Williams’ computer and digital equipment seized by JCPD was not reviewed by them.

Turner elected not to renew the annual contract through which Dahl worked with JCPD to help bring certain drug and weapons cases federal, where they often yield longer prison sentences. She has also sued the city, claiming that dismissal was in retaliation for her efforts to push police to more aggressively investigate Williams.

Little’s affidavit was part of a filing by attorneys representing multiple alleged victims. Defense attorneys for police have sought to depose three alleged victims and interview them formally. They’ve claimed the women have provided conflicting accounts related to Williams, their interactions with police, and other matters.

Lawyers for the women in question say they’re now part of a proposed class action suit in which they won’t be “class representatives” and therefore won’t be subject to being called as witnesses. The lawyers also argue that depositions of other alleged Williams victims have “needlessly retraumatized” them, and that the information defense attorneys say they need from the other women could be obtained by “less invasive means” than through depositions.

Williams — who was convicted of escape in federal court Friday — has also attempted to raise allegations of JCPD corruption. His efforts to do so at his recent trial, where he represented himself, were quickly shut down as the topic had been ruled irrelevant to the escape charge and inadmissible in that trial.

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