Allison Burchett mass email blames mayor for instigating raid on her home

Many people, inside and outside Knox County, woke up Thursday morning to an email and documents from the ex-wife of Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett claiming he instigated the raid on her home and workplace in 2015.

Allison Burchett pleaded guilty last May to several misdemeanor charges related to unlawfully accessing computer accounts of Nicole Strickland, the estranged wife of businessman Michael Strickland, with whom Allison Burchett has a relationship.

Allison Burchett, left, accepted a plea deal in the cyber harassment case filed against her during her hearing in Knox County Criminal Court on Thursday, May 25, 2017.

Her email alleged that investigators did not vigorously pursue Nicole Strickland’s complaint of hacking until Tim Burchett complained that he, too, had been hacked.

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Tim Burchett is running for Congress, and the mass email came two days after a robocall that spoofed the number of a Farragut Press telephone line and slammed Burchett. The mayor said he considered the robocall to be illegal and part of an ongoing “smear campaign.”

The email from allison@banditlites.com consisted of a 1,060-word introductory letter and three attachments:

  • A PDF labelled “PROOF TIM BURCHETT CAUSED INDICTMENT OF ALLISON BURCHETT.” It consists of a timeline and copies of documents related to search warrants and subpoenas, as well as a copy of a News Sentinel story in which Burchett’s spokesman, Michael Grider, said the mayor had “no role in the DA’s decision to bring criminal charges” Allison Burchett.
  • A PDF of a motion to dismiss the indictment against Allison Burchett.
  • A PDF of a motion to disqualify Assistant District Attorney William Bright from the case along with a series of attached exhibits.

Both of the court motions were prepared for the signatures of Allison Burchett’s attorneys William T. Ramsey of Neal & Harwell and David Eldridge of Eldridge & Blakney. But the copies were unsigned, and the motions were not filed in the case.

Allison Burchett and her lawyers did not respond to requests for comment on the email and the documents although she did send an email saying she had nothing to do with the robocall.

Tim Burchett stood behind Grider’s earlier statement.

“The bottom line is I reported a crime that was committed against me,” the mayor said Friday. “How the investigators and the prosecutors use that information was their decision, not mine. All I did was report a crime. I had nothing to do with the investigation or prosecution of Allison Burchett.”

The fact that Tim Burchett, himself, had complained of hacking had not been previously reported.

Records obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee show the mayor did file a police report on Feb. 19, 2015, in which he alleged his Yahoo email account had been hacked and his Apple ID password changed.

He told investigators a “grotesque picture” of him after eye surgery was tweeted by Allison Burchett even though he had never made it public.

“So either my phone was hacked or a doctor’s office computer was hacked,” he said.

Tim and Allison Burchett when he was sworn in as mayor.

According to Allison Burchett’s documents:

On Oct. 14, 2014, Nicole Strickland met with hesitance in an interview with a Knoxville police investigator, who told her, “We don’t have a cyber crimes unit,” indicating her hacking complaint was not being aggressively pursued. No search warrants were issued.

On Feb. 19, 2015, after interviewing Mayor Burchett about his hacking report, a police investigator “worked around the clock, pulling an all-nighter, to issue search warrants related to the allegations of Mayor Burchett and the allegations of Nicole Strickland.”

Later, the IP address of the computer suspected of hacking the mayor’s Yahoo account was traced to 400 Main Street, the address for the City-County Building, not Allison Burchett. 

“Thus, it was proven I did not access Tim’s accounts,” she wrote in the cover letter of the email. “Then, after knowing I had not accessed the accounts of Tim Burchett, the KPD raided my home and office, shifting blame onto the months old, dead complaint of Michael's estranged-wife.”

On May 15, 2015, KPD officers and agents of the FBI raided the home of Allison Burchett and the offices of Bandit Lites, where she worked.

No record indicates the outcome of the investigation into Tim Burchett's Apple ID. The investigative file on the case is under seal and cannot be viewed, according to a letter from Samuel K. Lee, chief deputy in the District Attorney General’s office.

Michael Strickland is the owner of Bandit Lites, a leading company in the entertainment lighting industry.

Tim and Allison Burchett's divorce decree was entered Sept. 28, 2012.