JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — A fugitive on federal weapons charges with ties to Johnson City is jailed in Jackson County, N.C. after being arrested on multiple drug charges Saturday morning.
Online records from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office show Sean Christopher Williams, 51, is charged with two counts of trafficking in methamphetamine and two counts of trafficking in cocaine.
He also faces one count of possession of a controlled schedule III substance with intent to sell or deliver, one count of possession with intent to sell or deliver a schedule II substance, and one count of maintaining a vehicle or dwelling place where controlled substances are sold.
Williams is being held under $1 million bond. He was arrested by Western Carolina University police.
Williams’s date of birth is listed as Nov. 8, 1971, the same birthdate, height and eye color as a Sean Christopher Williams Johnson City police were investigating in late 2020 and early 2021 after a woman fell from the fifth-floor window of a downtown apartment he owned.
After Mikayla Evans’s Sept. 19, 2020 fall, police obtained a search warrant for Williams’s apartment at 200 E. Main St., case notes from a months-long investigation by Johnson City Police Department’s Toma Sparks reveal.
“The search warrant was executed and multiple rounds of ammo was seized,” a note from Sparks at 1:10 p.m. Sept. 23 says.
A later note in the six-page file, from Nov. 12, 2020, says that Sparks “spoke with Kat Dahl about getting a federal indictment on Sean Williams for the ammunition found in his Liberty safe.
“All the evidence was put on Kat’s portable hard drive. She said that she would be in contact with me next week.”
Kateri “Kat” Dahl was a federal prosecutor who worked with Johnson City police through an agreement with the Eastern District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s office.
Property records show the marshals’ involvement came less than two months after Williams sold three units he owned in the Downtown Towers. That sale, for $800,000, occurred May 27, 2022.
On July 15, 2022 a downtown Johnson City business owner said U.S. Marshals visited his store and left a poster of Sean Williams with the same birthdate and height as the Williams currently in the Jackson County jail.
“Two U.S. Marshals came by this afternoon,” Campbell’s Morrell Music owner David Campbell told News Channel 11.
“He showed me the picture, he said have I seen this guy. I said no, but I know about the situation and know who it is,” Campbell said. “He just said, ‘well if you do (see Williams) just call us, there’s my number.’”
Officers at the Jackson County Jail on weekend duty said they weren’t authorized to speak about when Williams was due to be arraigned on his charges there.
