Suit filed by informant in Brittanee Drexel disappearance
(WPDE) — An inmate, and apparent informant, who reportedly linked a suspect to Brittanee Drexel's disappearance, has filed a lawsuit.
Tequan Brown, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence, told the FBI back in 2016 that he saw Drexel at a “trap house” in the McClellanville area, surrounded by eight individuals, including Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor, where he said she was gang raped, shot in the head and her body dumped in an alligator pit, according to the court documents.
Last Tuesday, Brown filed a handwritten amended complaint seeking a jury trial; his initial lawsuit was filed back in December. In the suit, he named Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim May; FBI agent Jeffery Long; South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Asst. Chief of Police Services for the S.C. Dept. of Corrections Jeffery Scott; S.C. Dept. of Corrections Commissioner Bryan Stirling; McCormick Correctional Institution Warden Charles Williams, Jr.; and inmate Timothy Rainey as defendants.
According to allegations made in the complaint, in 2016, Brown and his mother were threatened by someone who Brown believed to be (Timothy Da') Shaun Taylor and informed Scott of the threat, and subsequently, Brown was placed in protective custody. While there, Brown was interviewed by Scott, a Myrtle Beach police detective and an agent with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division about Drexel's murder.
Over the course of the next few months, Brown alleges that May and Long publicly released information linking Brown as an informant in the Drexel case, which he says foiled negotiations for a deal he was making with federal prosecutors-- even after Brown says he told May and Scott that he wanted no part in the Drexel investigation. The lawsuit alleges that May and Long publicly called Brown a snitch, recklessly placing Brown's life "at a substantial risk of death, and or serious injury."
Brown alleges in his lawsuit that the release of that information made him a target, and a $15,000 bounty was placed on his head, which Brown says has led to multiple attempted assaults, one of which was said to be by Rainey. Brown alleges he made authorities aware of threats against him and nothing was done to protect him. The suit says the SCDC, Stirling, Williams, Scott, May and Long either intentionally or were grossly negligent in "allowing conditions to exist where inmate assailants are able to prey on other inmates."
The suit also states that Rainey, in a meeting with the FBI, accused Brown in Drexel's rape and murder; the suit also states Rainey's allegations were made after entering into an agreement with prosecutors.
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