City, officers' lawyers respond to latest claims in federal Sean Williams-JCPD corruption lawsuit

Lawyers for the city of Johnson City and six police officers have filed replies to the newest arguments against them in an ongoing civil suit that claims Johnson City Police Department officers were paid off to protect convicted sex offender Sean Williams. The replies, filed in the Eastern Tennessee U.S. District Court Thursday, say that evidence submitted by Mikayla Evans' attorneys a week prior does not prove that JCPD officers took bribes or obstructed evidence to protect Williams in several sexual assault investigations. The city's reply alleges, as it has in previous filings, that Evans' claims were made outside the one-year statute of limitations and therefore should be dismissed. In their most recent filing, the city's lawyers write that text messages of Evans' allegedly show that her claims against the city began in 2022, nearly two years before she filed her lawsuit. Johnson City spokeswoman Sarah Nobles provided the following statement in regard to the city's most recent filing: "Attorneys for Johnson City and Johnson City police officers have responded to a filing by Mikayla Evans' attorneys who were directed to provide evidence supporting their allegations of criminal activity. The court stated that these allegations are extraordinarily serious, and that if they are not true, they are malicious, libelous, and could constitute sanctionable conduct on the part of Ms. Evans' attorneys. The City maintains that Ms. Evans' attorneys still have failed to produce any credible evidence of bribery or extortion and that these allegations were not made in good faith. In addition to this absence of evidence, the City has demonstrated that Ms. Evans' own text messages and a televised interview establish that she was aware of the basis for her claims no later than June 2022. Evans' lawsuit was not filed until June 2024 — more than two years later and well beyond the one-year statute of limitations. For these reasons, Johnson City and the Johnson City police officers have asked the Court to grant summary judgment in their favor and to dismiss Ms. Evans' complaint in its entirety." Lawyers for one of the officers, Toma Sparks, called the bribery and theft allegations made against Sparks and another officer, Justin Jenkins, "libelous." The remark is in reference to Evans' money laundering allegations and claims that the two took money from Williams in exchange for not issuing a search warrant to Wiliams' when investigating him. "Plaintiff [Evans] accused Sparks of stealing cash, seizing a gold necklace, and accepting bribes of $2000 per week, and yet she has utterly failed to provide appropriate evidence in support of these libelous claims. At most, her 'evidence' shows that Sparks uses two bank accounts. Sparks is entitled to dismissal as a matter of law," Kristen Berexa, one of Sparks' lawyers wrote in the reply. Evans' lawyers did not respond to the Johnson City Press' request for a statement by press time. Thursday's filings in the lawsuit follow the submission of over 300 pages of evidence exhibits and justifications from Evans' lawyers on Feb. 5. The lawsuit was initially filed by Kingsport resident Evans in 2024. In September 2020, Evans fell five stories from Williams' Main Street apartment in downtown Johnson City and suffered life-threatening injuries. In addition to her lawsuit allegations, she claims Williams pushed her out of his apartment window after drugging and attempting to sexually assault her. Evans' lawsuit is one of two major and ongoing federal civil suits against the city and JCPD, the other filed in 2022 by former prosecutor Kat Dahl. Last year, the city approved funds for a total $30 million settlement for a lawsuit filed by multiple women, identified as Jane Does, in 2023. In January, a federal judged tentatively approved the $4.2 million class action part of the suit, which would allow all women who reported sexual assault to JCPD between 2019 and 2022 to receive compensation. U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer, the judge overseeing Evans' case, sentenced Williams to 95 years in prison in February 2025 for production of child porn and his escape from custody after a nationwide manhunt led to his final arrest in November 2023. Williams still awaits a trial date for North Carolina-based federal child porn and drug charges.