Johnson City’s police chief said in court records that his agency knew a downtown business owner was suspected of plying women with drugs and sexually assaulting them but never sought to question him about it — even after a distraught woman told officers she had just been raped by him.
Despite that admission, Johnson City Police Chief Karl Turner is defending his agency’s handling of a string of sexual assault complaints levied against the man, whose identity is being shielded in court records, and the agency’s failure to arrest the man on an outstanding federal indictment.
“Each complaint of sexual assault or rape was properly investigated,” Turner said in a response to a whistleblower lawsuit filed against the chief and the city of Johnson City. “It is … admitted officers were attempting to spot (the man) out and about in the downtown area instead of staging an apprehension (on the federal indictment) … It is admitted that (the man) has fled and has not been apprehended.”
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The agency’s handling of the investigation of the man — labeled with the pseudonym “Richard Voe” in ongoing litigation — came to public light in July when the Tennessee Lookout reported former Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Kateri Dahl had taken the extraordinary step of suing Turner and the city as an alleged whistleblower.