Oak Ridge Today

Knoxville man drowns after jumping from houseboat into Norris Lake

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Anderson County Sheriff's Department Badge

Note: This story was updated at 10 a.m. July 4.

A Knoxville man drowned after jumping from a houseboat into Norris Lake on Saturday evening, authorities said.

The man has been identified as William E. Blasius, 19.

The drowning was reported at about 6:30 p.m. Saturday near Sequoyah Marina in Andersonville.

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Department and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency responded.

“Several houseboats had tied off together and to the shore as they gathered to watch the fireworks show at the marina,” said Mark Lucas, chief deputy of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department. “Sheriff’s investigators responded to the scene and are looking into the possibility Blasius may have hit another boat as he dove into the water.” [Read more…]

Updated: Man drowns after jumping off houseboat at Sequoyah Marina

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Note: This story was last updated at 3:40 p.m. July 3.

ANDERSONVILLE—A man drowned after jumping off a houseboat a few hours before a fireworks show at Sequoyah Marina in Andersonville on Saturday evening, authorities said.

The man was reported to have jumped into the water from the top deck of a large houseboat tied to the shore along with other houseboats, said Mark Lucas, chief deputy of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department.

He said the Sheriff’s Department is investigating the possibility that the man might have hit his head on another boat.

Divers recovered the man’s body under water, authorities said. His name and age haven’t been released yet.

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Sergeant Roy Smith requested rescuers after he received a report that a man jumped off either a bridge or a wall about 35 feet into the water, spokesman Matthew Cameron said Sunday.
[Read more…]

Sheriff warns against drunk driving this holiday weekend

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4th of July GHSO

By Anderson County Sheriff’s Department

Every year, Americans head out on the nation’s highways to celebrate the Fourth of July at picnics, parties, parades, and more. Unfortunately, for many, the celebrating includes drinking alcohol, which too often leads to drunk driving on one of the most heavily traveled holidays of the year.

To crack down on drunk driving this Independence Day weekend, Anderson County law enforcement will be out in full force, aggressively targeting those who put lives in danger.

Sheriff’s deputies will be out working to make the roadways safe.

“Don’t even think about drinking and driving this Fourth of July, or you will be arrested,” said Sheriff Paul White. “The ‘Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over’ campaign means zero tolerance for drunk driving…no excuses.” [Read more…]

TWRA looking for watercraft riders in hit-and-run crash that injures four on Melton Hill Lake

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Personal Watercraft Operator Melton Hill Lake Crash June 30 2016

A photo of a personal watercraft and operator that witnesses described as striking a boat containing a family pulling a child on a tube on Melton Hill Lake on Thursday, June 30, 2016. (Photo courtesy TWRA)

 

Tennessee officials are investigating a hit-and-run boating crash on Thursday on Melton Hill Lake in the area of Clark Park and Knox County Park.

The crash was reported at about 7:45 p.m. Thursday. Among the agencies that responded were the Oak Ridge Fire Department, which went to Clark Center Park in south Oak Ridge.

According to witnesses, two personal watercrafts, or PWCs, were operating near the bluffs directly across from Knox County Park and going back and forth between the dock at the park and the bluffs where others were swimming, according to a press release from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Witnesses describe the operators as being reckless and inconsiderate, and as one of the PWCs left the bluff and headed toward the park, it collided with a boat in the area containing a family pulling a child on a tube. [Read more…]

Former ORPD officer pleads not guilty to statutory rape, official misconduct

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Cassen Jackson-Garrison

Cassen Jackson-Garrison (Source: TBI)

Note: This story was updated at 6:10 p.m.

CLINTON—A former Oak Ridge Police Department officer charged with aggravated statutory rape and official misconduct pleaded not guilty in Anderson County Criminal Court on Friday morning.

Cassen Jackson-Garrison, 31, was indicted on the two charges by the Anderson County Grand Jury on May 3. He was arrested May 6 by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Anderson County Sheriff’s Department in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.                                                                    

At the request of Seventh District Attorney General Dave Clark, TBI special agents began investigating Cassen Jackson-Garrison, who was an ORPD officer at the time, on August 13, 2015, on a complaint that he was having sexual contact with a minor. During the course of the investigation, Agents developed information that Jackson-Garrison had sexual contact with the teen in July 2015, the TBI said in a May 6 press release. [Read more…]

DA: Most indicted in cocaine conspiracies plead not guilty Friday

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Dave Clark

Dave Clark

Note: This story was updated at 4:10 p.m.

CLINTON—Most of the defendants indicted in two cocaine conspiracies that were announced this month pleaded not guilty during arraignments in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on Friday, officials said.

Trial dates have already been set, Seventh District Attorney General Dave Clark said. The trial date for the defendants charged in a Knoxville conspiracy is July 2017. The trial date for those charged in an Oak Ridge conspiracy is September 2017.

Officials said there were 34 conspiracy-related arraignments scheduled for 32 defendants in Anderson County Criminal Court on Friday morning.

Almost all of the defendants scheduled to appear on conspiracy-related charges on Friday were indicted by the Anderson County Grand Jury on May 3 in two alleged plots to manufacture, distribute, and sell 300 grams or more of cocaine last year. They were also indicted on charges of allegedly conspiring to manufacture, distribute, and sell more than 0.5 gram of cocaine in a school zone. Each of those defendants is facing eight charges. One conspiracy allegedly involved 24 people, and the second allegedly involved 11. Two of the defendants were named in both conspiracies.

Some of the defendants are also facing more drug-related charges. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge man arrested, bond set at $100,000 in Knox trafficking case

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Zubin Percy Parakh

Zubin Percy Parakh

Note: This story was updated at 5:03 p.m.

An Oak Ridge man was arrested and booked into Knox County jail on a trafficking charge on Saturday, one day after Tennessee and Knoxville officials announced that 32 men and women had been arrested in an operation to combat human trafficking.

Bond for Zubin Percy Parakh, 32, of Golfcrest Lane in Oak Ridge, has been set at $100,000 on the trafficking charge. A preliminary hearing has been set for May 31, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office website.

The arrests and citations on prostitution and human trafficking-related charges were made as part of Operation Someone Like Me last week in Knoxville.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said two of the men, including a children’s minister, Jason Kennedy, 46, of Knoxville, responded to ads for what they thought were girls under the age of 18. Kennedy was a children’s minister at Grace Baptist Church on Oak Ridge Highway in Karns, but he has since been fired. [Read more…]

Children’s minister, local residents among those arrested, cited in human trafficking operation

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Jason Kennedy

Jason Kennedy

Note: This story was last updated at 2:30 p.m. May 23.

A three-day operation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and detectives with the Knoxville Police Department to combat human trafficking in Knoxville has resulted in the arrest of 32 men and women on prostitution and human trafficking-related charges. Two of the men, including a children’s minister, responded to ads for what they thought were girls under the age of 18.

TBI identified Knoxville’s Jason Kennedy, 46, as the children’s minister arrested for patronizing prostitution and human trafficking. Kennedy was a minister at Grace Baptist Church in Karns, but he has now been terminated.

The TBI said there is a warrant out on a trafficking charge for Zubin Parakh, 32, of Oak Ridge. A spokesperson at Lifehouse Church in Oak Ridge said Parakh serves as a volunteer and “creative pastor” there, according to WBIR, a Knoxville television station. The church told the television station that Parakh has never worked with children.

Grace Baptist released a statement to the media after the Friday news of Kennedy’s arrest.

“The children’s pastor of Grace Baptist Church has been terminated as as result of an arrest in a police sting related to prostitution and human trafficking,” the church said. “The actions of the children’s pastor for which he has been arrested were part of his life outside the church, and we have received no questions or concerns related to his conduct within the church or its ministries.

“The children’s pastor was hired two-and-a-half years ago. The church’s background check turned up no issues that indicate any previous problem. In fact, the children’s pastor in his application affirmed that he had no issues in his background of a criminal or other nature.

“We are praying for his family and will continue to provide the services of our ministry to them.”

Oak Ridge Today has not been able to reach LifeHouse Church for comment.

The TBI said the arrested men also include an engineer and a volunteer firefighter.

Kennedy has been charged and booked. Most of the others were charged on a citation, the TBI said. [Read more…]

City, county could move General Sessions Court to Emory Valley Road

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Anderson-County-General-Sessions-Court-Exterior-Nov-19-2015

A few options have been considered, and Anderson County will now study whether to move the General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge to a county-owned building on Emory Valley Road. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

A few options have been considered, and Anderson County will now study whether to move the General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge to a county-owned building on Emory Valley Road.

Related to that proposal are plans to move the Oak Ridge Senior Center, which is now at the Emory Valley Road building, to the Oak Ridge Civic Center on Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Also up for a possible move is the Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Department. That department now occupies part of the Civic Center, where the Senior Center could move, but the department’s administrative offices could move to a vacant building on Badger Road that once housed Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.

The idea is that moving the administrative wing of Recreation and Parks to the Badger Road building could free up space for seniors at the Civic Center, which in turn would help create space at the county-owned building for the General Sessions Court. [Read more…]

Wanted by TBI, Rogersville fugitive captured in Hawkins County

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Gary Simpson

Gary Simpson

A Rogersville man who was added to the TBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list Thursday was captured later that afternoon in Hawkins County, authorities said.

Gary Simpson, 57, was wanted by the Rogersville Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for especially aggravated kidnapping.

On May 4, Simpson kidnapped 9-year-old Carlie Marie Trent from school, the TBI said. He had no custodial rights to Carlie.

Simpson was the suspect of the AMBER Alert issued this month for Carlie Trent. [Read more…]

Vehicular homicide charge added to DUI charge after passenger dies

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Scott Allen Gray

Scott Allen Gray

 

A Knoxville man who admitted to drinking for two days straight and taking two Klonopins has now been charged with vehicular homicide, in addition to driving under the influence, after his 23-year-old passenger, Jessica Miner Taylor, of Heiskell, died about one week after a two-vehicle crash on Clinton Highway in Anderson County in April, authorities said.

Scott Allen Gray, 26, was initially charged with vehicular assault and DUI (second offense) after the two-vehicle crash injured three people at the intersection of Clinton Highway and Mehaffey Road on Thursday, April 28.

The vehicular homicide charge was added after Jessica Miner Taylor, who had been trapped in the car, died this month.

The THP said Gray was driving north on Clinton Highway in a 1993 Eagle Vision sedan on April 28 when he turned into the path of a southbound 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle driven by Kimberly Williamson, 32, of Knoxville.

The SUV driven by Williamson hit the car driven by Gray. [Read more…]

Twenty-four indicted in second cocaine conspiracy of 300 grams or more

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Edward Javard Mitchell

Edward Javard Mitchell

Note: This story was last updated at 10:08 p.m.

Twenty-four people, most of them Oak Ridge residents, have been indicted by the Anderson County Grand Jury in a second alleged cocaine conspiracy of 300 grams or more. That makes a total of 33 people who have been indicted in two separate conspiracies to allegedly manufacture, distribute, and sell 300 grams or more of cocaine last year.

There are other charges that apply to some of the suspects as well.

The indictments allege that the two conspiracies, one involving 11 people and the other involving 24, both occurred between May 14 and December 23, 2015. The indictments are being posted by the Anderson County Circuit Court Clerk following a drug suspect roundup that started Thursday and continued into Saturday in Oak Ridge. It’s not clear yet if other communities were involved, or if authorities have alleged additional conspiracies. Also, all the charges against all the defendants don’t appear to be posted yet.

Two of the defendants are named in both conspiracies.

Authorities have said little about the case so far. But they plan to release more information about what they have described as a complex, multi-county criminal investigation during a Monday afternoon press conference in the Clinton office of Seventh Judicial District Attorney General Dave Clark. Authorities have said parts of the investigation were unprecedented. Local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies are expected to report on the investigation during the Monday afternoon press conference. [Read more…]