After crash, search, man sentenced on gun charge, woman indicted on drug charges

 

A man was sentenced on a federal gun charge in September and a woman was indicted on state drug charges in June after a three-car crash reported after a shooting in 2015 led authorities to track a driver to a home in north Oak Ridge, where officers allegedly found 49 grams of suspected heroin and other drugs.

Larry Dewayne Williams of Oak Ridge pleaded guilty to a federal charge of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on September 26. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Pamela L. Reeves to the minimum seven years in prison, or 84 months.

In June, Chelsey Reign Lively, identified as Williams’ girlfriend in court documents, was indicted on state drug charges of selling, delivering, or possessing heroin for sale; selling, delivering, or possessing for sale more than 14.175 grams of marijuana; and selling, delivering, or possessing ethylone for sale. The Anderson County Grand Jury indicted Lively on June 6, and she was arraigned in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on June 30.

The circumstances of the shooting, reported on Wakefield Road at about 8:30 p.m. Monday, September 21, 2015, remain unclear. No injuries were reported, although three bullets were reported to have hit one home. It’s not clear who the shooter was or if there was more than one person involved. There appeared to be a significant number of rounds fired. Investigating that night, Oak Ridge Police Department Detective Kevin Craig documented 21 casings.

About two hours after that shooting was reported, Oak Ridge Police Department Officer James Elkins tried to stop a silver Infiniti sedan that was reported to be involved in the shooting, according to court documents. But the silver Infiniti fled, ran a red light, and caused a three-car crash at West Outer Drive and North Illinois Avenue in north Oak Ridge, the court documents said. The Infiniti rolled onto its side and burst into flames, and Williams, identified as the driver, climbed out of the car and ran into the woods, according to his plea agreement.

Elkins used a fire extinguisher to put out the fire in the car. While looking for Williams, Elkins found a semi-automatic pistol in the Infiniti and also saw an AR-15 type firearm lying on the passenger floorboard, according to the plea agreement.

An Anderson County Sheriff’s Department K9 team tracked Williams to a home at 612 West Outer Drive, where he was reported to be on probation/parole, the plea agreement said.

Officers knocked on the door. They found the door to be unsecured, and it came open, the plea agreement said.

“Officers announced their presence with no response,” the agreement said. “Officers noted lights were on, and a television was operating. Officers then entered the home to clear it and check on the occupant’s welfare. No one was found in the home. Officers observed in plain view gun cases and gun magazines. State search warrants were obtained for the residence and the silver Infiniti.”

When officers searched the silver Infiniti, which was registered to Williams, they found two firearms, a loaded Mohawk Armory .223 caliber pistol and a loaded Armscor .45 caliber pistol, the plea agreement said. A single round of 9mm ammunition was also found.

At the home on West Outer Drive, they found .45 caliber and .223 caliber ammunition, gun magazines, and gun cases, according to the plea agreement.

Lively was located and interviewed a few days later, on Thursday, September 24. She said Williams had showed up at their shared home on West Outer Drive on September 21, and she drove him to another location in another vehicle, the plea agreement said.

Lively asked the defendant (Williams) what happened, and he said: “I don’t know how I got out of the car. The car caught on fire, and it flipped,” the plea agreement said.

An affidavit attached to a complaint filed against Williams in U.S. District Court on October 2, 2015, had identified his Infiniti as matching the description of the car reported to be involved in the shooting on Wakefield Road: a silver Infiniti sedan with damage to the rear of the car.

That affidavit—filed by U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Senior Special Agent Rebecca A. Bobich—also said that authorities found, inside the West Outer Drive home, about two ounces of suspected heroin, 7.72 ounces of suspected marijuana, plastic baggies, a Triton digital scale, .45 caliber and .223 caliber ammunition, and gun cases and gun magazines.

A wanted bulletin was issued for Williams, and he was arrested in Knox County about a month after the shooting and crash were reported. He was indicted on October 6, 2015, on the single federal charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

The plea agreement Williams signed on April 27, 2016, does not mention the alleged shooting or the suspected drugs. But it does agree to the facts of the three-car crash and the weapons and ammunition found during searches of his car and home.

The plea agreement does say that the facts that Williams agreed to in the agreement do not necessarily constitute all of the facts in the case.

During his sentencing in September, Reeves recommended that Williams receive 500 hours of substance abuse treatment from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Institution Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program, participate in educational classes and training to learn a trade or marketable skills, and be sent to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Kentucky, closest to Knoxville.

Once he is released, Williams will be on supervised release for three years. He cannot posses a gun, ammunition, destructive device, or other dangerous weapon, according to a judgement filed in U.S. District Court.

 

Williams had previously been convicted in Anderson County on multiple felony drug charges of possessing cocaine with the intent to sell it, according to his plea agreement.

His federal sentence was to run concurrently with any expected state sentence for violating his parole in two earlier cases in Anderson County.

No new state charges have been filed against Williams related to either the suspected drugs or the traffic crash, according to Anderson County court records. It’s not clear that any additional charges, if filed, would result in any more prison time for Williams, who is already serving the seven-year sentence on the federal gun charge. There is no parole in the federal system, and federal convicts must serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.

In an interview before the sentencing hearing last year, Anderson County District Attorney General Dave Clark said he couldn’t comment on the case and can’t comment on charges against a specific person.

“We work with our federal partners to try to allocate resources efficiently and try to arrive at the just outcome,” Clark said.

Lively was initially charged with possessing heroin (49.2 grams) and marijuana (7.72 ounces) for sale. The charges against her were waived to the grand jury from Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge on October 20.

Those involved in the investigation that led to the indictments against Lively included Craig and Oak Ridge Police Department K-9 Officer Ben Haines.

Neither the affidavits nor the indictments say how much suspected ethylone was found. Ethylone is listed as a synthetic cathinone by the National Institutes of Health, along with butylone, ephedrine, MDPV, methadrone, and methylone. The drugs can be sold as “bath salts,” according to the NIH, and they may possess both amphetamine-like properties and the ability to modulate serotonin, causing distinct psychoactive effects.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

 

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