A Tennessee man accused in lawsuits of drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of women received a 95-year prison sentence Monday for other types of offenses: the production of child sex abuse images and an escape from an inmate transport van.
Judge J. Ronnie Greer in Greeneville called Sean Williams an unrepentant “organized, methodical sexual predator of women and children,” according to the Johnson City Press. Prosecutors said Williams, who was already in prison, had razor blades in his shoes on his way to court.
Williams, 53, congratulated a prosecutor for a “dramatic performance” during Monday’s hearing in federal court and implied the images were faked or doctored. Williams laughed, shook his head and retorted when the judge said the only thing worse he could imagine would be being a serial killer.
Earlier this month, Johnson City officials voted to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by women under “Jane Doe” pseudonyms against the city and individual police officers that claimed police deliberately botched investigations over sexual assault allegations against Williams from 2018 to 2021.
Williams has not yet been criminally charged as a result of the women’s allegations in the lawsuits.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
The city and the officers have long denied corruption allegations, including a claim in the women’s lawsuit that Williams paid police to obstruct investigations into sexual assault allegations against him. The settlement broadly includes up to 400 women, including minors, who lodged any report of sexual abuse or trafficking to Johnson City Police from 2018 through December 2022, due to accusations of gender discrimination. The settlement still requires court approval.
A campus police officer at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, found Williams asleep in his car in 2023 while he was fleeing a federal felon-possessing-ammunition charge in April 2021.
His vehicle contained cocaine, methamphetamine, about $100,000 and digital storage devices with more than 5,000 images of child sexual abuse. Williams was also in possession of photos and videos showing him sexually assaulting at least 52 women at his Johnson City apartment while they were in an “obvious state of unconsciousness,” police wrote.
At least half a dozen names on folders containing videos of women were consistent with first names on a list labeled “Raped” that Johnson City officers had previously found in his apartment, a police affidavit said.
After being charged in connection with the child sexual abuse images, Williams in October 2023 escaped from a van taking him from a Kentucky detention center to a hearing in Tennessee. Authorities caught him in Florida more than a month later.
He was convicted in July of the van escape and in November of the child sex abuse images of a 9-month-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old girl. Prosecutors said Williams also raped the children’s mothers while they were unconscious and that there were images and videos of them as well. Williams took the sexually explicit photos of one child in 2008 and the other two on separate occasions in 2020, all in his apartment, prosecutors said.
Jurors were shown the pictures that included his hands, which showed a tattoo on his middle finger and a scar on his wrist, CBS affiliate WVLT reported.
In Tennessee state court, Williams faces additional charges involving minors. In a North Carolina federal court, he’s charged with possessing child sexual abuse images and illegal drugs.
Two other federal lawsuits against Johnson City and individual police officers are still pending over the investigation of sexual assault reports against Williams.
“Sean Williams is a dangerous sexual predator who preyed on our community’s most vulnerable victims,” U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III said in a statement Monday. “Today’s sentence reflects the severity of the crimes committed and not only ensures that this dangerous individual has been held accountable for the harm he caused, but also prevents him from hurting others again.”
