A Baldwin County attorney has filed suit against the City of Orange Beach, alleging that city officials defamed him in apparent retaliation for his previous inquiries into the death of Thomas “Danny” Williams.
Harry Still III faced third-degree assault charges in September after a confrontation with a Bay Minette City Council member, and ultimately faced conviction in municipal court. Still appealed that ruling to circuit court, however, and a jury overturned his conviction in May.
While that incident is unrelated to Still’s former interrogation into Williams’ death, his complaint filed last week against the city alleges that city officials defamed him in a press release following the incident and that they had conspired to discredit him and ruin his reputation.
The suit, filed pro se, does not make a clear connection between the defamation claim and Still’s previous representation of Williams’ estate, but the bulk of the complaint focuses on the issue and implicates the connection. Still also announced his plans to file suit on a recent episode of his “Heart of Dixie” podcast with guest Neely Faulkner of Murder Creek Media and further made the connection.
In Still’s complaint, he identifies himself as the attorney for the “federal confidential drug informant used by the DEA and FBI in 2014-2015 to investigate the late Thomas Daniel Williams Jr. and suspected collaborator Anthony Thomas Kennon, Mayor of Orange Beach.”
News reports from the time indicated that the FBI investigated Williams in a steroid scandal largely as a catalyst to investigate potential corruption in the city. Williams—a fitness trainer for the city at that time—ultimately faced six months in jail for selling steroids but no other charges were filed.
Williams was later found dead in 2022 after fishing in the area of Terry Cove. The death was officially ruled an accidental drowning, but has long been a source of rumor and conspiracy for Kennon’s detractors. According to the complaint, Still began to discuss the death on his podcast before being hired to represents the Williams estate. At that time he filed a wrongful death suit against Ashlea Shamp, who Still described in the complaint as Williams’ “paramour” and the owner of the boat he used on the day of his death.
As part of that suit, former Orange Beach police chief Steve Brown and city attorney Jamie Logan were deposed and asked about the investigation into Williams’ death.
“Chief Brown claims to be unaware of the fact that Ms. Foster Shamp was also dating a man named Jon Christoher Washington who was previously convicted in the 2012 murder of Kenneth Gary Myers Jr (the Beach Chair Man/ Chairman of the Beach as he was known in the community) here in Orange Beach who moved back to Orange Beach after completing his sentence for Manslaughter,” Still wrote in the complaint. “It would have been murder but someone at the Orange Beach Police Department mishandled the weapon used to end Mr. Myers life … When Defendant Steve Brown was asked if he was the officer who mishandled the murder, weapon he refused to answer and left the deposition. At that time Defendant Jamie Logan left the room with Defendant Brown and returned with two uniformed Orange Beach Police Officers.”
The complaint alleges that Still and his client were tailed by police following that deposition. The defendants have not yet responded to the complaint.
The lawsuit is the latest on a stack of suits the city has faced as public scrutiny has become what Kennon referred to at the most recent council meeting as a “circus.” Most of the chatter—plus a lawsuit and an ethics complaint from three sitting council members—deals with an incident in which Kennon was allegedly seen nude on the balcony of a public building assaulting an unknown woman. Body camera footage exists of Orange Beach police making contact with Kennon at the scene, but that footage has not been released. C.C. Dixon-Moreno has sued the city alleging it has no right to refuse her demand for the footage as a public record, and three councilmembers filed an ethics complaint alleging Kennon threatened them when they suggested releasing the footage.
