Judge won’t yet consider new evidence in JCPD lawsuit

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — The first hearing in a federal civil lawsuit alleging civil rights violations against sexual assault victims by Johnson City police proved tough sledding for the plaintiffs Friday, though the judge delayed any ruling on two important motions.

Attorneys for the unnamed plaintiffs — who claim police corruptly overlooked downtown resident Sean Williams as he allegedly drugged and raped multiple women — aimed to convince Judge Jill McCook that officers named as individual defendants should be forced to produce years of financial and bank records.

The plaintiffs hope to reach trial and convince a jury that police violated the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the women’s right to equal protection by not adequately investigating Williams, who is now suspected in dozens of rapes.

But McCook delivered at least a temporary setback to the plaintiffs after attorney Julie Erickson made a stunning claim: that recently provided credit union records from one officer offer the strongest direct evidence yet of financial corruption.

“We’ve come into a whole new set of evidence that bolsters the claims that officers were financial beneficiaries (of corruption),” Erickson said.

One immediate problem surfaced. She was talking about Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) officer Justin Jenkins, who was among three named defendants dismissed from the suit last week.

“What we’re seeing in our initial review is mind-blowing, really,” Erickson said. She asked McCook to clear the room of media so attorneys could review the records with the judge. McCook declined, and Erickson pressed the issue in hopes she would at least allow review later in what turned out to be a nearly four-hour hearing.

Keith Grant, who represents Jenkins and another defendant officer, Jeff Legault, quickly rose to tell the judge he hadn’t seen the documents yet. “I would object to actually talking about this at this hearing,” he said.

McCook ordered Erickson to “stick to what’s in the record” already, and later refused the plaintiff attorneys’ request to “proffer” the evidence, under seal, for McCook to accept and consider.

Diametrically opposed foes

Erickson tried to lay out a case that more documents can help “connect the dots.” She said case law shows that when there’s evidence of multiple wrongdoers “working in concert,” judges should allow deep dives into their financial records.

Even if that results in a mainly circumstantial case, “we need leeway to piece things together” and that “the jury will decide if that’s enough,” Erickson said.

Defense attorneys for the city and several individual officers, meanwhile, stuck to their contention — that whatever atrocities Sean Williams may have committed without JCPD ever interviewing him about rape claims, plaintiffs haven’t found a smoking gun because there wasn’t corruption.

Grant made a point of saying the primary foundation of the plaintiffs’ corruption claim was a 2023 Facebook post made on Williams’ behalf. That post claimed that his ex-business partner had paid police $2,000 a week after being caught with drugs, and that police also stole $419,000 from his safe when they seized it in September 2020 after a woman fell from his window .

“That paragon of human virtue that he is,” Grant said of Williams, “that’s the only evidence I’ve seen that any officers were receiving money.”

Erickson, aided at times by plaintiffs’ counsel Heather Moore Collins, argued that if money laundering was occurring, it would involve a very complex scheme that might even require a forensic accountant to help successfully uncover. The best path there, she said, was being granted sufficient access to records — a request she said was not out of bounds or overly intrusive.

“I do think these documents are critical to the motion,” Erickson said. “They 100% corraborate (the circumstantial corruption claims made so far).”

“We ask that we not be shut down at this point based on what the defense has called conspiracy theory,” she later added.

Ben Allen, an attorney for the one officer (Toma Sparks) specifically named in the suit as receiving payoffs, also referenced the Facebook post and said “there’s been zero evidence that payments were made to him (Sparks).”

“We are not opposed to providing financial records,” Allen said, noting they had offered a good bit of what the motion to compel requests.

“We’re opposed to providing financial records that go well beyond the relevance in this case.”

Allen said while procedures surrounding the seizure of Williams’ safe with money in it weren’t executed perfectly, that situation didn’t amount to “definitive evidence of money disappearing from the safe.” He said authorities had investigated the incident and found no wrongdoing.

Erickson, though, recounted what she said was a situation in which no logs were made showing multiple officers counting and verifying the money, adding that “the money just disappeared.”

Erickson said even without a “smoking gun,” circumstantial evidence will show what they still claim — that money went out from Williams or his former business partner through bribes or extortion, made its way to some officers, and that officers intentionally obstructed proper efforts to uncover what they say was sex trafficking by Williams.

“We need evidence in the form of financial records to tease that out,” Erickson said. “This is not a fishing expedition, and in reality our allegations are the truth.”

McCook didn’t tip her hand beyond saying she wouldn’t immediately admit the new documents from Jenkins’ finances. She did ask plaintiffs how the new evidence was relevant to what they want from current defendants Sparks, Legault and former JCPD Chief Karl Turner.

“We need the records to connect the dots with the other defendants,” Moore Collins said.

McCook said she would provide a written order once she’s decided on the motion to compel.

A second motion, to prevent defense attorneys from deposing three witnesses who are now “unnamed class members” of what the plaintiffs aim to make a class action suit, also didn’t appear to go the plaintiffs’ way.

Defense attorneys said the three possessed highly relevant information that could only be effectively drawn out through deposition (interview). Plaintiffs’ attorneys pointed to what they said were highly intrusive and traumatic depositions of other witnesses, who are also sexual assault victims, and said they believed the defense could get the information it needed in less intrusive ways.

McCook ended the day by telling both sides to meet in the coming days and try to agree on parameters that would allow for depositions while protecting the three women from undue trauma or irrelevant questions.

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