Attorney explains reason for class action in Sean Williams assaults lawsuit
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — A judge hasn’t yet okayed class action status in the alleged Sean Williams sexual assault victims’ lawsuit against Johnson City, but the lead attorney on that effort spoke at Tuesday’s news conference in Knoxville that also featured alleged victims’ statements.
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“This class action will be a vehicle to allow many women, the dozens of Sean Williams survivors and the hundreds of women who were harmed by (Johnson City Police Department’s) discriminatory refusal to prosecute sex abuse, to vindicate their rights,” Elizabeth Kramer said.
Kramer and her firm — one of whose specialties is class action suits involving sexual abuse or assault — first came into the picture in September 2023. That’s when the plaintiffs’ attorneys filed a proposed amendment to their first suit that was filed in June 2023. One part of the amendment would see the establishment of a class action with three classes.
The change came just a couple of weeks after News Channel 11 reported on the alleged existence of photo and video evidence showing Williams allegedly raping or sexually assaulting more than four dozen different women in his downtown Johnson City apartment.
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Despite reported pressure by then-federal prosecutor Kat Dahl and multiple complaints from 2019 through mid-2021, Johnson City police never charged Williams with any sexual assaults. He now faces three counts of child rape, federal counts of child pornography production and the possibility of many more adult rape counts based on the alleged photo and video evidence found after police arrested him in Cullowhee, N.C. April 29, 2023.
By that time, the City of Johnson City had released the so-called “Daigle Report,” an audit the city solicited of five years’ worth of sexual assault reports to the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD). The report found evidence of sex bias in some JCPD responses to sexual assault complaints, and that led to a third potential class in the suit — people who had reported sexual assaults or abuse to JCPD regardless of who the alleged perpetrator was.
Tuesday, Kramer said the ability for some alleged victims to remain anonymous by being part of a class but not having to testify is crucial. Each class has a single representative who would bear the brunt of active participation in the lawsuit.
“The pending complaint in this case is filed by three women who are using their initials and prosecuting the case as representative plaintiffs on behalf of other survivors,” Kramer said. “They may at some point reveal their identities but that will not undercut the choice, often the necessity, for women to be able to participate in this lawsuit anonymously.”
Kramer said women who are involved in the lawsuit “have a very real threat of retaliation.”
She claimed that plaintiffs’ attorneys in the federal civil lawsuit have evidence that makes it “clear that Sean Williams drugged and raped dozens of women and could not have done so without protection from JCPD officers.”
The Daigle report, Kramer said, “revealed over 250 instances of sexual assault reports that the JCPD systematically refused to investigate and sometimes actively suppressed, all based on a practice of sex discrimination.
“Part of that violence is feeling alone, silenced and not believed.”
A judge has not yet ruled on whether to allow the amended lawsuit to proceed and the defendants have filed a motion to prevent it. Johnson City also denies all the claims in the suit, which is one of two it’s facing related to Williams and the JCPD’s alleged handling of his cases.
The classes include:
A ‘sex trafficking survivor class’ including anyone was was sexually abused, drugged or trafficked by Williams or an alleged co-conspirator.
A ‘Williams survivor subclass’ including any members of the first class ‘who were sexually assaulted by Sean Williams following the first report to the JCPD of Sean Williams’ alleged sexual violence on or about Nov. 7, 2019.
A ‘reporter survivor class’ of all women, including minors, who reported sexual abuse or trafficking by any person to JCPD from Jan. 1, 2018 to April 25, 2023.
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