Williams admits to escaping from van in day 1 of trial
GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — Sean Williams’ long-delayed first federal criminal trial got off to a slow but often contentious start Tuesday that included verbal sparring between Williams, who is representing himself, and U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer.
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Once opening statements began around 3:30 p.m., the six-woman, six-man jury heard the government’s claim that Williams not only escaped from a prison transport van last Oct. 18, but later bragged to a U.S. Marshal about how he managed it.
In a move that may have surprised jurors, Williams admitted to escaping from the van that was bringing him to a court hearing in Greeneville.
“I’m not contesting that,” Williams said after prosecutor Greg Bowman had described the U.S. government’s version of that day in detail during his opening statement.
“I did do that,” Williams said. “I’m contesting my lawful custody during that time.”
Williams faces two escape-related counts in this trial, including a second for an alleged attempted escape from the Washington County Detention Center July 23, 2023. He could face up to five years in prison on each count if found guilty.
‘All that’s left behind is the other inmate and some shackles.’
Prosecutor Greg Bowman on Sean Williams alleged escape from a prison van
Williams has been in federal custody, other than the five weeks he was at large in October and November 2023, since early May 2023.
He was transferred to federal custody after being arrested in Cullowhee, N.C. April 30, 2023 on drug charges because he had an outstanding federal warrant from 2021, when he was charged with being a felon in possession of ammunition. He spent almost two years at large after Johnson City police tried to arrest him May 5, 2021.
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Williams is also at the center of multiple sexual assault allegations and already faces child rape and federal child pornography production charges, with more charges possible.
Those allegations in turn form the basis for three federal civil lawsuits against Johnson City that either claim or suggest that Johnson City police corruptly looked the other way as Williams allegedly drugged and raped women over a period of years. One document claims that more than 50 of the alleged assaults were filmed, and that Williams possessed digital files of those assaults when he was arrested in North Carolina.
Johnson City has denied all the claims in the civil suits, the first of which is currently scheduled for trial in October.
Tone set before jurors even arrive
Williams began his own defense just 12 days after Greer allowed Ilya Berenshteyn — Williams’ fourth appointed attorney — to withdraw. Greer had warned Williams repeatedly that he would wind up representing himself if he continued to run into issues with his defense attorneys.
Early on, prosecutors revealed that they had offered Williams a plea deal: they would drop the attempted escape count on condition that all investigative materials about either escape case remain inaccessible to Williams. He had turned that down.
The trial included bouts of tense exchanges as Williams repeatedly tried to introduce two themes Greer had said weren’t admissible or relevant: that he hadn’t had adequate time to prepare, and that alleged corruption by Johnson City Police was relevant to his escape cases. At one point before jury selection Williams mentioned “having lots of evidence that all that is connected. I have seven boxes.”
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Each time, Greer shut Williams down, often as prosecuting attorneys were also objecting to Williams’ statements. He reminded him that both arguments had been ruled irrelevant to his escape cases.
Before the jury was even seated, Williams responded to one of Greer’s reminders by saying “Are you involved in this corruption? I don’t get the motives here. What are we hiding here?”
Soon after, Greer told Williams he was “not going to engage in a running argument with you.”
Jurors hear allegations
After the jury was finalized, Greer told jurors that Williams was innocent until proven guilty and that federal prosecutors Bowman and Meghan Gomez had to prove several things beyond a reasonable doubt, including:
That Williams was legitimately in federal custody
That he’d been arrested on a felony charge leading to that custody when each incident occurred
That in the case of the actual escape, he “knowingly and voluntarily left custody without permission.”
That in the attempt case, he committed an “overt act that was a substantial step toward leaving custody without permission” and that he knew his actions could result in his leaving without permission.
In his fairly brief opening statement, Bowman told jurors Williams’ actions “undermined” the foundations of the U.S. justice system. He said they’d hear witnesses describe the “meticulous planning he went through” to “evade justice.”
Bowman described how on July 23 a Washington County Sheriff’s officer, acting on a tip from other inmates that Williams was removing materials along his cell wall, found a section of wall about four feet long and 4 inches high that Williams had allegedly removed before hiding his work using toothpaste to reattach the material.
He also said authorities discovered journals detailing Williams’ plans for escaping and for how he intended to survive.
Then, Bowman got to the Oct. 18 escape, which drew national attention when an intense multi-day manhunt grew cold. Williams wasn’t captured until Nov. 21, and by then he was in Florida.
Bowman said Williams was shackled and belly chained, and riding with another detainee who also had a federal court appearance, when he left Laurel County in the back of a van with two officers up front.
As the van readied to pull in at the Greeneville federal courthouse, “the other inmate starts yelling,” Bowman said.
The officers stopped the van and noticed the back side window was broken out. “All that’s left is the other inmate and some shackles,” he said.
Williams’ trail had grown cold until authorities got a tip Nov. 17 that he was in Sylva, N.C. They nearly found him there in a truck that had been reported stolen out of Greeneville not long before, then used license plate tracking technology to trace the truck to Pinellas County, Florida.
A sheriff’s officer there saw the truck Nov. 20, followed it, and allegedly saw Williams get out at a residence, but he wasn’t caught until the following day after a tip that he’d been at a convenience store.
Spilling the beans?
Bowman said Williams had also kept a journal after his Greeneville escape with details of the escape and even pictures of an abandoned house in Greeneville where he holed up for about three weeks with plenty to survive on.
That sharing on paper became verbal when two U.S. Marshals picked Williams up in Lewisburg, W.V. after his return from Florida and drove him to Blount County (Tenn.) jail, where he has been staying since December.
“He began to tell them about his escape,” Bowman said. He said Williams described how he managed to remove a loose metal clip in the rear of the van and use it to get his handcuffs open before using his shackles to pry open the window and leap out as the van approached Greeneville.
Tough procedural sledding for Williams
Dressed in a slightly-too-large black sport jacket and open-necked white dress shirt and out of handcuffs during his defense, Williams ran into numerous objections from Bowman and Gomez as he made his own opening statement. Williams’ thick wavy hair was much longer than most of his booking photos, he wore glasses and he had a longish goatee.
Greer often upheld those objections and also again warned Williams after he tried to bring up his lack of prep time and potential police corruption.
“You cannot talk over me,” a seemingly exasperated Greer said at one point. “You cannot argue with me. If you want to make an opening statement, make it.”
In the end, Williams’ largely meandering statement did hone in on at least one potential argument about the July incident — that he may not have been able to escape since the cell wall simply adjoined another cell. He also noted that authorities didn’t move him to a maximum security cell after the incident.
The day ended with the prosecution completing its time with one witness and getting halfway through its second.
U.S. Marshal Keeton Bostic said he was one of the two marshals transporting Williams back to Blount County in December.
During cross examination, Williams asked him whether, as he described his escape, “did it seem like I was bragging to you?”
“Yes,” Bostic answered.
“Was I crying?” Williams continued. “Yes,” Bostic said.
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“So I was bragging and crying at the same time?” Williams asked.
Bostic said Williams was crying later, and when Williams later asked what he had told Bostic about his attempted escape, Bostic, with the help of his report, said “you didn’t talk about the attempted escape.”
Williams then made one more attempt to bring up alleged police corruption, mumbling about having brought it up in the van with the marshals. Gomez quickly objected and Greer cut him off.
“The evidence suggested in your question is irrelevant,” he said. “It’s inadmissible.”
The day ended with Williams gaining perhaps his first achievement, as with the help of Berenshteyn’s advice, he managed to get introduced into evidence a photo of his cell in Washington County and the adjoining cell separated by the wall in question. That was during cross examination of Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy Toby Briggs, who was the corrections officer that searched Williams’ cell July 23 and discovered the disturbed wall material.
Greer ended the trial for the day shortly after 5 p.m. with Williams due to continue his cross examination of Briggs when the trial resumes at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
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