JC to pay majority of lawsuit settlement from city reserve funds

Nearly all of a $28 million payment to settle a federal sexual assault-related lawsuit against the City of Johnson City will come from city reserves rather than municipal liability insurance. A city spokesperson has confirmed that $27 million of the total will come from undesignated fund balance and restricted fund balance. The city’s municipal liability insurer will make its maximum payout of $1 million per the city’s policy. At the end of 2024, the combined fund balance was just shy of $50 million. The payout will settle the suit filed in 2023 by numerous women who claimed they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by downtown business owner and resident Sean Williams between 2018 and 2021. The plaintiffs had claimed the Johnson City Police Department and individual officers failed to properly investigate Williams, with those claims eventually extending to allegations of bribery and corruption. Johnson City denied all allegations throughout the proceedings, and the settlement includes language from the plaintiffs’ attorneys saying they faced a “significant risk” of not proving their claims.