A federal judge in east Tennessee has cleared the way for a class action lawsuit against Johnson City and various Johnson City Police Department officials. The suit claims that for years, the Defendants enabled Sean Williams and his partner Alvaro Fernando Diaz-Vargas, who allegedly drugged, raped, and exploited women and children in Johnson City.
In addition to allegedly not investigating sexual assault complaints, allegedly obstructing a Trafficking Victims Protection Act investigation, never arresting Sean Williams for sexual assault and allegedly threatening at least one victim with eviction, the Plaintiffs claim in the lawsuit that Johnson City Police Department officers benefited from the alleged sex-trafficking scheme and effectively accepted payments from Williams when police allegedly “seized Williams’s safe, which contained $500,000 in cash and returned it with only $81,000.”
The initial suit filed in June was on behalf of ten plaintiffs identified as “Jane Does”. With the approval of this class action lawsuit, more victims who were sexually assaulted from 2018 to 2023 may now come forward without fear of publicly identifying themselves.
While the Johnson City Police Department never arrested Sean William for sexual assault, the former Johnson City businessman was arrested in North Carolina in April 2023 for drugs, which allegedly led to the discovery of photos and video of Williams committing over 50 sexual assaults, including incidents involving children.