DA Finney responds to criticism in Sean Williams case
GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — The lead attorney in the Jane Does federal lawsuit against Johnson City has written that she has “no confidence” First Judicial District Attorney General Steve Finney is committed to prosecuting Sean Williams for dozens of alleged sexual assaults — an assertion Finney flatly denies.
COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE SEAN WILLIAMS CASE
“I remain fully committed to seeking justice for the women and children who were victimized by Sean Williams,” Finney wrote in a July 3 response to questions from News Channel 11.
In a story broken by News Channel 11 last August, since around June 2023, Finney’s office has had alleged video and/or photos purportedly showing at least 52 people being sexually assaulted by Williams. Court documents show the DA’s team has interviewed alleged victims, but the only indictments they’ve brought against Williams so far are for three alleged incidents involving children.
Finney’s letter said there is a good reason for the delay. Plaintiffs’ attorney Vanessa Baehr-Jones, meanwhile, wrote just last month she doubted the cases would be indicted, as she laid out her argument that Finney should also release redacted past Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) case notes from some of her clients’ alleged rapes.
The charge that Finney isn’t committed to prosecuting is among several allegations leveled against him as Baehr-Jones’ team seeks to depose Finney and obtain his cell phone records. Other claims suggest Finney has colluded with Johnson City and its city manager, Cathy Ball and, by refusing to release past police investigative material into some of her clients’ cases, to stymie Baehr-Jones’ efforts to show potential police corruption related to Williams.
Steve Finney Letter to Wjhl by Jeff Keeling on Scribd
The Tennessee Attorney General’s (AG) office has filed motions on Finney’s behalf to quash the cell phone subpoenas and the deposition.
Why the DA is involved
The Jane Does lawsuit, filed in June 2023 on behalf of multiple alleged Williams victims, has at its core a claim that JCPD officers failed to properly investigate and charge Williams as he engaged in serial drugging and raping of women. It claims the JCPD’s conduct violated its constitutional right to equal protection.
Williams was never charged with any sexual assaults by the JCPD. He became a fugitive on a federal separate charge after JCPD officers went to his apartment May 5, 2021 but were unsuccessful in efforts to serve him with a warrant.
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Williams was arrested in Cullowhee, N.C. April 30, 2023 on drug charges, but felony amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine weren’t all Williams allegedly had in his car when a university police officer encountered him in the middle of the night. A News Channel 11 story several months later revealed that Williams also allegedly possessed digital devices with folders of pictures and video purportedly showing him raping dozens of women in his apartment. Jane Doe plaintiffs are among those.
Computer files show 52 Sean Williams alleged rapes
Following the filing of the Jane Does suit, court records show, Finney’s office informed the JCPD on June 27, 2023 it would handle any criminal investigations surrounding Williams, “to avoid any conflict and/or any appearance of impropriety on any entity’s part.”
Separate indictments filed Sept. 11 by a state grand jury in Finney’s district and a federal grand jury charged Williams, who had been a federal detainee since May, with aggravated child rape and sexual assaults (state) and production of child pornography (federal). Those indictments related to three separate alleged incidents, two in 2020 and another sometime between 2008 and 2011.
While his office has been investigating the alleged adult assaults, it hasn’t produced any indictments. Finney has insisted some investigative and other files can’t be released to the Jane Doe attorneys due to the investigation. Disputes over that are among several points of contention between Finney and those attorneys.
Finney, who is not a defendant in the lawsuit, covered several issues in his letter while noting his ability to comment is limited “due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.” But his answers provide insight into a commonly asked question: When, if ever, will charges be brought against Williams for any of the 50-plus rapes for which video and photographic evidence was allegedly discovered in May 2023 in the wake of his arrest on other charges?
In a June 1 email to another defense attorney in the civil case, Baehr-Jones expressed frustration over Finney’s office withholding documents from her team. She went on to write “at this point, I have no confidence that the DA’s office plans to bring indictments in my clients’ cases, nor for that matter, in the cases of any of the 52+ Williams sexual assault victims.”
Finney: ‘Efforts will continue until justice is realized’
As outlined in a recent deposition of Ball, Finney met with Johnson City representatives June 1, 2023 and told them about the alleged video evidence against Williams, an update she called “very disturbing.”
Ball said Finney “indicated that he wanted as many of the victims (as possible) to come forward to the DA’s office, and that they were going to start reaching out to folks to ask them to come in.”
Ball said Finney wanted to have victim advocates and a female assistant DA, Abby Wallace, involved, all as “part of trying to get as many women as possible who … were videoed to be able to come forward.”
In his July 3 letter to News Channel 11, Finney wrote that since June 2023, “my office has worked in conjunction with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, devoting countless hours to the investigations associated with Mr. Williams.
“These efforts will continue until justice is realized,” he continued. “My commitment to this has been and will continue to be unwavering. Any statement or inference to the contrary is untrue.”
While Baehr-Jones referenced Wallace telling her during a July 26, 2023 phone call that she estimated indictments before the end of 2023, Finney’s letter explains his reasoning for not having indicted Williams on any rapes of women yet.
Wallace’s estimate came before the Sept. 11 federal indictment on production of child pornography. They also came just before Williams’ North Carolina drug trafficking charges went federal through an Aug. 1, 2023 federal grand jury indictment.
Because federal authorities have held Williams since May 2023, “state prosecutions cannot proceed until all federal charges have been adjudicated,” Finney wrote.
Because the state can’t take custody of Williams until any federal trials or plea agreements conclude, he added, “there could be potential procedural complications should the state move forward with criminal charges against Mr. Williams at this point.”
He wrote that rather than potentially adding “new complications in what is an already complex case, it is the best decision to simply wait. Please rest assured … my commitment to seeking justice for the victims of Sean Williams is absolute.”
Plaintiffs suggest ‘misuse of his position of public trust’
Documents reveal disputes between Baehr-Jones and Finney’s office going back months, with the issues coming to a head now as the sides tussle over Finney’s records and testimony.
Baehr-Jones’ email came a day after Liz Evan of AG Jonathan Skrmetti’s office filed a motion asking federal judge Travis McDonough to quash the subpoena for Finney’s phone records and prohibit his deposition. Baehr-Jones filed a response June 15 disputing Evan’s legal arguments, claiming Finney has abused his investigative privilege and committed “a grave misuse of his position of public trust.”
Finney forcefully countered in his letter to News Channel 11.
“I can speak with absolute certainty, that once all matters involving Sean Williams have concluded, it will be undeniable that no aspect of the investigation by my office was conducted in any way which could have betrayed public trust or be shown to have acted in any manner which sought to deprive justice for any victim,” Finney wrote.
In addition to suggesting Finney’s office won’t prosecute the additional alleged crimes, plaintiffs’ attorneys also claim Finney has withheld information about their clients’ complaints against Williams by citing ongoing criminal investigations by his office.
They allege Finney’s communications with Ball, and his refusal to recommend a state investigation into potential police corruption, are evidence of his potential involvement “to impede this lawsuit and/or other public corruption investigations into JCPD (Johnson City Police Department).”
In her response to Finney’s motion to quash, Baehr-Jones argued that his phone records “will shed further light on the contours of the alleged obstruction of justice as well as potential additional allegations of wrongdoing concerning Finney’s coordination with Ball and counsel for the City.”
She also opened the door for Finney to be added to the lawsuit itself: “(S)hould these records (or other discovery) substantiate that Finney had a hand in obstructing justice or engaged in public corruption, Plaintiffs will promptly seek to amend their complaint to included those allegations.”
How we got here
Finney took office Sept. 1, 2022, barely two months after an earlier federal lawsuit against the city by former special assistant U.S. attorney Kateri Dahl put serial rape claims against Williams into the public eye.
Dahl had worked under the JCPD in 2020 and 2021. After a woman named Mikayla Evans survived a Sept. 19, 2020 fall from Williams’ fifth-floor window, police discovered ammunition in Williams’ safe and in early November called Dahl in to work on a federal “felon in possession of ammunition” case.
Dahl quickly learned that several rape complaints had been filed against Williams, and also that the search of his apartment had yielded a list of more than 20 names with the word “raped” at the top, according to her lawsuit.
The suit, filed about a year before North Carolina police stumbled on the alleged video and photo evidence of Williams’ rapes, alleges JCPD failed to renew her contract in retaliation for her whistleblowing and insistence that they more assertively investigate Williams.
Finney took office about a week after Cathy Ball sent a letter to his predecessor, Ken Baldwin, about the lawsuit. She asked that if Dahl hadn’t reported her claims to him, whether the DA or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation would “conduct a preliminary investigation” to determine whether a more thorough investigation was warranted.
It was Finney who responded. His short Sept. 1, 2022 letter said he didn’t know of Dahl reporting anything to the First District, and encouraged the city’s defense attorneys to file discovery motions to learn more specifics about allegations in paragraph 98 of Dahl’s suit.
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That paragraph claims “several witnesses and Jane Doe 8 (one alleged Williams victim) expressed their concern to Dahl that (Williams) was able to get away with his behavior by paying Johnson City Police Officers off.” Jane Doe 8, the paragraph states, had seen evidence firsthand that made her “fearful that (Williams) was bribing law enforcement at Johnson City.”
Finney wrote that he would gladly meet with Dahl and her attorneys about the allegations and copied them on the letter, but wrote there was no mechanism for a “preliminary investigation” and that he didn’t have enough information at that point to request a TBI investigation.
Baehr-Jones’ June 15 filing claims “Finney was incorrect” in saying there was no mechanism for a preliminary investigation. She refers to a later audit of JCPD’s handling of sexual assault cases by policing consultant Eric Daigle, who noted that the department should have initiated an internal affairs investigation once Dahl filed her allegations.
Baehr-Jones characterizes Finney’s letter as “approval” after which Ball “continued to do nothing in response to the corruption allegations against JCPD.”
The city did eventually open an internal affairs investigation into several officers, but in a recent deposition, Ball said they were waiting to conduct the actual work “in abeyance” until after the lawsuits conclude.
Finney-plaintiff disputes arose quickly after Williams’ capture
After Finney’s office took over opening or reopening of any cases in June 2023, the DA’s work and that of the Jane Doe attorneys were in the same sphere.
Baehr-Jones notes a July 26, 2023 phone meeting she had with DA representatives, a Department of Justice (DOJ) trial attorney and an FBI agent. By that time, the DOJ and other authorities had been investigating potential federal sex trafficking violations related to Williams since around November 2022.
Baehr-Jones’ filing says she told authorities her clients “desired criminal accountability for Williams and were willing to cooperate in any criminal investigation which would lead to his prosecution for their assaults.” She wrote that she asked for updates on evidence submitted by her clients, as well as redacted versions of her clients’ statements and police reports.
The DA’s office refused, citing the active criminal investigation, and thus began a relationship that by Baehr-Jones’ written account deteriorated and has not improved. Her June 15 filing claims that Finney’s team insisted victims come in for interviews, that he has withheld evidence from her team improperly and that he refused to cooperate in securing victim compensation funds for her clients.
Another attorney for the Jane Does, Heather Moore Collins, wrote to Finney in August 2023 and told Finney his conclusions about launching an investigation were incorrect. She wrote that the Daigle report’s conclusion the JCPD should have launched an internal affairs investigation “was a failure on the part of JCPD and the DA’s office.”
Collins’ letter raises what she claimed was a “significant potential conflict” for Finney’s office “due to concerns that you and others within the DA’s office may be implicated in obstructing an investigation into Dahl’s allegations.” (Finney was a private criminal defense lawyer up to the point he won the election as DA and was not working for that office during Dahl’s tenure.)
Collins continued that “your office is implicated, albeit indirectly, in the lack of criminal accountability of Williams.” She wrote the Daigle report’s findings “at a minimum warrant a serious conflict of interest review by your office and likely a request for a District Attorney General Pro Tem to handle this matter going forward.”
Finney’s office has continued to oversee the cases, and in a November 2023 letter to Baehr-Jones, Finney wrote to reassure her that his office and the TBI had “worked diligently over the past several months building a multi-faceted criminal case against Mr. Williams.”
He noted that Williams faced a mandatory sentence of life without parole if convicted in the child sex abuse cases in state court. And Finney wrote that as the DA’s staff and TBI have interviewed adult victims who were willing to meet with them, they’ve “made every effort to ensure that the victims are treated in a compassionate and empathetic manner and that resources such as victim advocates and therapy are readily available … at no financial cost to the victims.”
Finney added that investigators trying to speak with “victims whom you represent in the federal civil class action lawsuit” have had their efforts “impeded by you.” He wrote that for her clients’ criminal cases to go forward “it is imperative that these victims speak with state investigators.”
He also claimed that Tennessee law would only allow victim compensation for people who “fully cooperate with law enforcement and prosecution efforts.” He offered victim witness coordinators from his office and the TBI to help with that process.
Baehr-Jones’ June 15 filing argues that the motion to quash from the state AG’s attorney is weak on substance and that there’s no reason for Finney to be able to shield his phone records or avoid answering questions in a deposition. She argues the information sought is relevant and isn’t privileged due to the investigation or its being “work product.”
It claims the history of plaintiffs’ alleged difficulties with Finney’s office, the Daigle report and other “history of events related to this litigation” merit the records’ disclosure as well as an interview. And it claims questioning Finney is critical to their case because he can testify about JCPD improperly closing cases of sexual violence, JCPD’s failure to train and supervise, its policies and practices, and “other topics that go to the heart of Plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim.”
Whether Baehr-Jones and her colleagues will be permitted to depose Finney or access his cell phone records will be decided by a federal judge. The Jane Does federal lawsuit, which has been amended and seeks class-action status, isn’t scheduled for trial until April 2025.
Kat Dahl’s lawsuit is scheduled for trial beginning Oct. 22. Williams’ child pornography production trial is scheduled for Aug. 27, and he has a federal escape trial due to begin July 16.
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