Ex-Johnson City businessman at center of police misconduct allegations sentenced to 95 years

Eight Johnson City women who are participating in a lawsuit against Johnson City over its handling of rape reports spoke at a February press conference in Knoxville to push back on public statements suggesting victims shared fault (Photo: John Partipilo)

Accused Johnson City serial rapist Sean Williams was sentenced to 95 years in federal prison Monday on three counts of child pornography production involving victims as young as nine months old.

The sentence – which includes a five-year prison term for escaping federal custody – will ensure the 53-year-old former businessman implicated in scores of sexual assaults against women and children will remain behind bars for the remainder of his life.

Williams has been at the center of explosive allegations of misconduct by the Johnson City Police Department for more than three years.

Earlier this month, Johnson City announced it had agreed to pay a record $28 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by Williams’ victims and others who alleged Johnson City Police mishandled their reports of sexual assault.

Two other lawsuits against the city and its police department linked to Williams remain pending.

One was brought in July by a woman who alleges Williams pushed her from the window of his five-story downtown Johnson City condo during an attempted sexual assault.

A separate lawsuit brought in 2022 by a former U.S. prosecutor Kateri Dahl alleges Johnson City police thwarted her investigation into Williams then failed to renew her contract as a police department liaison when Dahl refused to back down.

Williams also faces additional drug charges in North Carolina and more than two dozen charges involving sexual crimes against children in Washington County, Tenn.

Williams was arrested in April 2023 while sleeping in his car in North Carolina. Arresting officers discovered large amounts of illicit drugs in Williams’ vehicle and a later review of his electronic devices yielded images of Willilams sexually assaulting 67 women and children inside his Johnson City apartment, according to an affidavit by an investigator with the First Judicial District Attorney General’s Office filed in federal court. The victims all appeared unconscious.

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Three of the women whose assaults were discovered in the images were the mothers of children who were also sexually abused by Williams, court records show.

It was these children’s sexual abuse, also recorded by Williams, that resulted in Williams’ child pornography production convictions Monday.

In handing down the sentences, U.S. District judge Ronnie Greer ruled that any future sentences Williams receives in North Carolina or Washington County, Tenn will be served consecutive to his 95 prison sentence, court records said.