Jury Takes Little Time To Find Sean Williams Guilty

It did not take long for a jury in US District Court in Greeneville to find former Johnson City businessman Sean Williams guilty of producing child pornography. The trial began on Tuesday with the 53 year old Williams nearly siging a plea deal, before changing his mind at the last minute.

Evidence presented at trial showed that Williams used three minor children to engage in sexually explicit conduct and took photos of that conduct as it happened at his Johnson City apartment. Prosecutors showed the jury evidence that Williams also sexually assaulted each of the victims’ mothers while they were unconscious, around the same time that he took the pornographic photos of their children. The criminal conduct extended over a 12-year period. Williams took photos of the first victim in 2008 and the two other victims on separate occasions in 2020. The ages of the children at the time of the assaults were 9 months, 4 years and 7 years. The photo evidence was discovered during an investigation into drug related activity by Williams after he was arrested by police in North Carolina. The jury was shown explicit photos of the victims that included Williams’ hands, including a distinctive tattoo on his middle finger and a scar on his wrist. The prosecution presented most of its case on Wednesday.

Closing arguments were made in the trial Thursday morning. With the evidence presented and testimony from the victims’ mothers, it took the jury less than 30 minutes to convict Williams on all three counts. He will be sentenced on February 24 in federal court in Greeneville. He faces a maximum of 30 years in prison for each of those three counts.