Secret recordings from inside child predator sting shows police ignoring laws

What happens when you give people with bizarre conspiracy theories a gun and a badge?

Secret recordings from inside the troubled Millersville Police Department provide a sobering answer to that question.

Those recordings — obtained from what was supposed to be a sting operation to nab sexual predators who prey on innocent children — show that, in their zeal to make some big cases, Millersville's conspiracy-minded cops may have crossed the line of what's legal.

That sting was run back in May by Millersville Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor and a colorful cast of characters he assembled for the operation.

Among the revelations, the recordings show:

• Taylor did not involve other law enforcement agencies with more experience in such operations because of his unfounded conspiracy theories that prominent state officials are involved in child sex trafficking.
• Members of a private group posed online as minors — despite Millersville police being told by prosecutors that the sting would be legal only if sworn law enforcement officers were the ones doing the work.
• Shawn Taylor told one operative that investigators would be using "pre-signed search warrants," which would likely be illegal, according to experts.
• Police arrested one suspect then, when he refused to talk to investigators, they turned him over to the private group for questioning.
• A Millersville detective boasted that the suspect was being taken to a jail where it was likely that he might not come out alive.

"This is the most disturbing video that I've ever been asked to comment on since I've been asked to do the legal analyst job here at the station," said Nick Leonardo, a veteran Nashville lawyer who worked with NewsChannel 5 for some 15 years.

Bryan Staples/WTVF

Millersville police did not respond to NewsChannel 5's request for comment.

As NewsChannel 5 Investigates first revealed, Shawn Taylor has voiced support for all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories, many of them involving child sex trafficking and some of the country's most powerful political figures.

Taylor even believes the discredited QAnon "Pizzagate" hoax that falsely claimed Democrats kept child sex slaves locked up in the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor.

He imagines that Millersville, a community of about 6,000 people just north of Nashville, is at the center of Tennessee's drug and human trafficking operations.

Listen to recording excerpt in player below:

NC5PhilWilliams · Shawn Taylor On Millersville's Role in Drug and Human Trafficking

The recordings show that, in a phone call in the run-up to the Millersville sting, Taylor once again revealed his conspiracy-fueled paranoia, insisting that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and other state law enforcement agencies are involved in the sex trafficking.

"So be real careful, especially when it comes to our state agencies," Taylor cautioned. "So we've just got to be real careful with them because we have people what we've already identified that are involved in the money laundering side."

Listen to recording excerpt in player below:

NC5PhilWilliams · Shawn Taylor On State Law Enforcement Corruption

"Truth be told, it's a lie," Leonardo said.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates added, "It's unhinged?"

"It's unhinged. It is very, very, very dangerous."

In fact, a team photo for Operation Clean Sweep, as Taylor dubbed it, consisted of just five police officers from Millersville — none with actual experience running child sex stings.

Two of the men were introduced to the group as "prayer warriors," who are part of a group that believes the battle against human trafficking is a battle against "demons."

The woman in the middle was a three-time Republican candidate for Congress from North Carolina, who faced accusations of domestic violence and child abuse that she denied.

There were also two MAGA podcasters and former Navy SEAL Craig "Sawman" Sawyer.

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Back in 2018, Sawyer took a Tucson TV crew to a camp that he suggested might have been used for child sex trafficking.

In fact, police said it was just a camp used by homeless families.

These days, on far-right podcasts, Sawyer raises money for his own Arizona-based nonprofit called Veterans for Child Rescue, but there's no evidence that his group has ever rescued any actual children.

On one recent podcast, Sawyer claimed, without evidence, that he knew of a location "near Nashville, Tennessee that they are flying the children into."

Even more bizarrely, the secret recordings reveal Sawyer talking about his hopes for continuing to work with Shawn Taylor.

"And start whacking some — you know, not to make it political — but whole leftist, corrupt, pedophile, this evil thing that's taken over Nashville," Sawyer said.

Listen to recording excerpt in player below:

NC5PhilWilliams · Craig Sawyer Discusses Millersville Operations

Nick Leonardo's reaction?

"Just when you thought it couldn't get any more shocking, you keep listening and it just gets worse as it goes."

For example, in one recording, Shawn Taylor talks about being prepared for the operation with "pre-signed search warrants."

"We're going to have search warrants that are already — they'll have to meet certain perimeters for us to execute the search warrant — but they are going to be pre-signed search warrants," Taylor told a member of Sawyer's team.

Listen to recording excerpt in player below:

NC5PhilWilliams · Shawn Taylor On Pre-signed Search Warrants

There's just one major problem.

"A search warrant cannot be pre-signed," Leonardo said. "You have to see what's going on, and you have to put that into a warrant, and you have to swear to that individually in front of a judge — and that becomes the probable cause."

NewsChannel 5 asked, "Is a pre-signed search warrant going to stand up in court?"

"A pre-signed search warrant would be a criminal offense in and of itself," Leonardo answered.

A source with longtime experience running child predator schemes confirmed that "pre-signed search warrants" would not be legal.

In the recordings, a member of Sawyer's team reveals a deal with Shawn Taylor where Millersville PD would seize data from any suspects and share that data with Sawyer's group — people who are not law enforcement officers.

"They are going to dump their phones, and they've agreed to give us their contact lists off their phones — so all of this data" would be shared with the group, said Forrest Sealey, executive director of Veterans for Child Rescue.

Listen to recording excerpt in player below:

NC5PhilWilliams · V4CR's Forrest Sealey On Millersville Data Agreement

Again, Leonardo was shocked by what he heard.

"There's no reason whatsoever that any kind of evidence — electronic data seized from any kind of device pursuant to a valid search warrant — should ever be in the hands of a private individual. That potentially would lend itself to a criminal charge."

"So that could be a crime, as well?"

"Potentially, it could be a crime."

And the video shows it was members of Craig Sawyer's team actually doing the chatting, posing online as a 12-year-old girl.

But that's not how Shawn Taylor was told that it had to be done to make it legal.

"So we just talked to our DA," Taylor said in a telephone call before the operation. "And, so, with the Tennessee state law, it said that the officer has to do the actual typing, that with our law it says it has to be a law enforcement officer posing as a minor."

Leonardo agreed.

"Clearly it needs to be a POST-certified sworn law enforcement officer on the other side of that computer tapping those keys."

Listen to recording excerpt in player below:

NC5PhilWilliams · Shawn Taylor On Child Predator Sting Protocols

But video from inside the operation shows that not only were members of Sawyer's team doing the typing, they were also concerned about there not being video of them doing it.

"They needed videos of them, law enforcement chatting," one of the so-called "chatters" told a videographer.

"I'm not getting your faces," the man replied.

"Yeah. I just... I'm cool with it," she responded, "but they wanted to show law enforcement — not us — touching the phones."

Watch excerpt from secretly recorded video in the player below:

Secret recordings from inside child predator sting shows police ignoring laws

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Leonardo, "And the fact that they end up with people who are not law enforcement officers tapping the keys, those cases are in trouble?"

"Those cases are in serious, serious trouble," he agreed.

The recordings also show the plan was to try to lure the predators to a Shell station in Robertson County because the officers felt the prosecutor in this district would be more likely to work with them on their cases.

Millersville detective Mike Candler referred to fellow detective Todd Dorris as "Mater," a character from the animated "Cars" film series.

"Mater there is best friends with the district attorney in Robertson County," Candler said. "They went to high school together. So he said, 'Well, let's put this here so I can talk to him.' And we lock everything in. So he won't stand for nothing, and they all hate pedophiles."

And when they did get one suspect who had bicycled up Interstate 65 from Nashville thinking he was going to have sex with a 12-year-old girl, Millersville police took the man into custody.

"They said he was peddling like a son of a bitch," Candler recounted to the chatters.

Then, according to the recordings, the suspect was brought to a Millersville fire hall.

He didn't want to talk to the police, so they turned him over to Craig Sawyer's film crew.

"I just walked out, and y'all's little camera crew went in and starting asking questions — and he just gave everything up," Candler said.

One of the chatters sounded perplexed.

"The camera crew went in?"

"Yeah."

"Is that...?"

Candler quickly answered, "It's fine. We didn't prompt them, we didn't prompt them to ask any questions. We didn't have them do anything. It was unsolicited, and he just started what we call spontaneous utterance — just laying it out there."

Watch excerpt from secretly recorded video in the player below:

Secret recording of film crew shows their discussion of interrogating a suspect

Leonardo had a different opinion.

"Hands-down, the confession is not coming in for a host of different reasons because you have a private third party doing the interrogation and sitting here and filming it. That's not coming into evidence. It's just not."

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, "So again this guy could walk, probably would walk?"

"Yeah, he certainly would walk, certainly would walk based on the facts that we are going over here," Leonardo said. "I don't see how this prosecution could stick."

Still, the suspect was booked into Robertson County Jail — which, the detective grimly hinted, could be his last stop.

"Honestly, I wouldn't doubt he gets, comes up missing in the jail," Candler said.

"Yeah, I agree. I would like that," one of the chatters answered.

The detective continued, "That's a Robertson County thing. Robertson, Maury, Hickman, Monroe and Giles — you're not coming out of the jail."

Leonardo was stunned.

"What does that mean? What does he know that the rest of us do not?"

We noted, "Essentially, it sounds like he is saying we are taking him to a jurisdiction where we don't think he'll come out alive."

"Well, yeah, that could be the inference that's drawn," Leonardo said.

"That's very scary, and I think that's cause for an investigation by the TBI to determine what was meant by that."

The NewsChannel 5 legal analyst said he believes Millersville PD is now a rogue agency where conspiracy theorists have decided the laws don't apply to themselves.

Screenshot/Rumble

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Leonardo, "From what you've heard in these recordings, is this a police department that's out of control?"

"It sounds to me like it's a police department that never had control," he answered.

"This is jeopardizing the safety of the citizens of Millersville and something needs to be done."

Craig Sawyer has gone on InfoWars and other far-right podcasts attacking NewsChannel 5 for our investigation of Taylor and referring to this reporter as a "pedophile protector."

He has claimed this predator sting generated enough evidence to charge another 70 people, although there's no way to tell if that's true.

Robertson County prosecutors have not returned NewsChannel 5's phone calls.

In cases where the suspects did not travel to meet the 12-year-old girl, one potential obstacle could be, according to the recordings, the "chatter house" was located in Sumner County — which is an entirely different judicial district.

It's now clear whether prosecutors there would take up any potential cases.

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