Attorney for Kat Dahl comments on lawsuit dismissal after appeal filing

An attorney for Kat Dahl, the woman behind one of three major lawsuits alleging Johnson City police corruption, commented Monday on his client's recent challenge to the lawsuit's dismissal."We are pursuing review by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Kat Dahl will present her case in her briefing," Hugh Eastwood, one of Dahl's attorneys, wrote in an email to the Johnson City Press Monday.In his statement, Eastwood also responded to comments Johnson City officials made immediately after the lawsuit was dismissed in early September. "Summary judgment is not an exoneration of Johnson City. No jury has heard any evidence, and no witness has testified in open court. "For now, the record exists elsewhere — in the Daigle Report that Johnson City itself commissioned, in the sexual assault cases Johnson City has settled with hundreds of women and children, and in the criminal prosecutions of Sean Williams. All this happened only because Kat Dahl raised the alarm in 2020 and 2021, at the cost of her career."Nothing since has shown her to be wrong," Eastwood wrote in the statement. The suit, filed by Dahl in 2022, was dismissed on Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Katherine Crytzer. Dahl worked as a special federal prosecutor for the Johnson City Police Department in 2020 and 2021. Her lawsuit claims JCPD and former police chief Karl Turner killed funding for Dahl's contract in retaliation after she complained about the department's handling of rape allegations against now-convicted child sex offender Sean Williams.Eastwood filed a notice to appeal the decision Friday, according to court records.In response to a request for comment on the appeal, Sarah Nobles, a spokesperson for the city of Johnson City, provided the following statement on behalf of the city: "The city remains confident in U.S. District Judge Crytzer's ruling that concluded that the evidence did not support any of Ms. Dahl's claims against the city or Chief Turner. Ms. Dahl has the right to seek appellate review, and the city respects that process. Judge Crytzer's decision was careful, thorough and based on the evidence in the record. The city will continue to defend Judge Crytzer's ruling before the Sixth Circuit."The Daigle Report Eastwood referenced in his statement is a 2023 independent audit of JCPD's handling of sex-related crimes. It found several deficiencies in the department's investigative processes, training and records management. The report led to JCPD's overhaul of its officer training and policies for sex-related crimes, and the creation of a dedicated special victims unit within the department.Williams is currently serving a minimum 105-year sentence in federal prison. He was most recently convicted of meth and cocaine charges in North Carolina Western District Court. In 2024, he was sentenced to 95 years in prison for child pornography and escape from custody charges.Dahl's was the first of three suits filed against the city that claimed JCPD mishandled sexual assault investigations and protected Williams.Williams' trial date for outstanding North Carolina child pornography charges is set for Nov. 2 in the state's western district court, according to a court order filed in late August. The trial has been pushed back several times since the prosecution's initial filing. Outside of his convictions and charges, Williams is accused of raping more than 60 women and children years before his November 2023 arrest.