NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An escaped inmate accused of sexually assaulting multiple victims in Tennessee has been captured in Florida after more than a month on the run, authorities said.
Sean Williams, 52, was arrested without incident Tuesday in Florida’s Pinellas County after being spotted and tracked by a K-9 officer and his partner, the FBI in Knoxville said in a social media post.
Williams was in federal custody on three counts of producing child sexual abuse material and one count of distributing cocaine, and now faces one count of escape, the FBI said.
A former Johnson City, Tenn., businessman, Williams, also faces state charges including child rape, aggravated sexual battery and, most importantly, aggravated sexual exploitation, court records show. In addition, two lawsuits accuse him of drugging and raping multiple victims in the East Tennessee community for years, alleging local police did little to investigate him.
Williams escaped from a transport van on Oct. 18 en route from a detention center in Kentucky — where he was being held after an earlier escape attempt in Tennessee — to the federal courthouse in Greeneville, Tennessee, the FBI said. According to a criminal complaint, officers found Williams missing and the rear window of the vehicle kicked out after arriving at the courthouse.
Williams, who is originally from Florida, had a car stolen in Greeneville and was later spotted by a Pinellas County officer who chased the vehicle without success, U.S. Marshal David Jolley told WCYB-TV. Williams was later recognized by a store clerk and after fleeing the store, he was followed to a shelter under a tarp and arrested, Jolley said.
The manhunt took place after police in North Carolina said earlier this year that they found evidence that Williams himself had apparently documented dozens of sexual assaults.
According to a state court search warrant, a Western Carolina University police officer found Williams in a car in April while he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Inside the car, the officer found digital storage devices containing photos and videos of 52 female victims who were sexually assaulted by Williams in his Johnson City apartment while in an “obvious state of unconsciousness,” with many of the videos stored in labeled folders. the order goes.
At least a half-dozen names on the folders matched first names on a list titled “Raped” that was found in Williams’ apartment during a search warrant in September 2020, the document said. In addition, the devices contained more than 5,000 child pornography images, the warrant states.
An attorney representing Williams in the federal case did not immediately respond to an email. A court clerk said Williams had not yet appeared to answer the charges and that he did not have an attorney.
In addition, at least ten women accused Williams in lawsuits of drugging and raping victims for years before his arrest.
Kateri Lynne Dahl, a former special prosecutor in the East Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office, sued the city and Johnson City police officials in June 2022 over the way they approached the allegations about Williams. Dahl’s federal lawsuit alleges that she had substantial evidence that Williams had trafficked drugs and was credibly accused of sexually assaulting and raping multiple women, and that Johnson City police denied her request to investigate further.
When Dahl received a federal indictment and arrest warrant for a minor federal ammunition charge in 2021, the lawsuit stated that local police delayed and bungled the arrest, allowing Williams to flee. Dahl served in a coordinating role between the city and the U.S. attorney’s office. The then-police chief terminated her contract because she failed to file charges in other cases, the lawsuit said.
In response to Dahl’s lawsuit, Johnson City maintained in a statement that the failure to renew Dahl’s contract “was justified and based on a failure to fulfill its contractual obligations.” The city also responded to Dahl’s claims about how police handled the allegations against Williams, saying it took five months for charges to be filed after police requested one in 2020.
In an August 2022 lawsuit, attorneys for the city and the then-police chief alleged that the sexual assault allegations were properly investigated, adding that the chief and a captain believed charging Williams with the ammunition offense would be the most viable option to investigate other possible allegations.
In addition, numerous “Jane Doe” accusers filed their own lawsuit in June, alleging that Johnson City police had received reports alleging that Williams had attempted to drug and/or sexually assault women in his apartment, but officers treated him as untouchable.
Erick Herrin, an attorney representing the city, its then-police chief and other officers in federal lawsuits, said local rules prohibit him from commenting on the lawsuits.
“We are confident that the legal system will reach a proper resolution in this controversy,” Herrin said via email.
When asked for comment Wednesday, a police official referred The Associated Press to a statement from the city, which said: “The city is grateful for the arrest of Sean Williams so that the tremendous work of the investigative and prosecuting authorities can continue be continued to ensure that justice is served.”
In the summer of 2022, Johnson City contracted with a company to conduct a third-party audit of the police department’s handling of sexual assault investigations. Some of the findings released in July include that police conducted inconsistent, ineffective and incomplete investigations; relied on inadequate records management; had inadequate training and policies, and sometimes showed problems with gender-based stereotypes and biases.
The city has said it has taken steps to make changes pending the audit’s findings, calling this the start of improvements where officials have fallen short. Some of these include using the local district’s new sexual assault investigation protocol; assessing research policies and procedures; creating a “comfortable space” for interviews with victims and adding more funding for officer training and a new records management system.
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Reynolds reported from Louisville, Kentucky.