In their case against former doctor Barry Walker, his companies, and his family members, 17 plaintiffs who were sexually attacked by Walker between 1999 and 2022 have submitted an additional complaint.
Nine claims against Walker’s niece, Ninth West Judicial District Prosecutor Jana Bradford, are included in the 15-count amended complaint filed on August 1. Bradford is named as a defendant in her individual capacity as well as in her capacities as Walker’s attorney and as an executive, officer, or agent of two of Walker’s businesses. Bradford is not being sued in that position since prosecutors are immune from lawsuits for official activities.
Over the course of almost 25 years, Walker sexually attacked and raped over 30 girls in Pike and Clark counties. The victims were between the ages of two and fourteen. Walker was given 39 life sentences without the possibility of parole after entering a guilty plea to over 100 felony offenses in October 2022.
Five of Walker’s victims filed a civil complaint against Walker, his brother Bryan Walker, his niece Brandy Cox, his ex-girlfriend Lori Cogburn, and two Walker-owned businesses less than three weeks after Walker pled guilty. In addition, Cogburn, Cox, and Bryce Walker were accused of aiding and abetting Barry Walker’s mistreatment of the victims. (A Pike County jury found Bryce Walker not guilty, Cox pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years, and Cogburn pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years.)
In March 2023, Bradford and Walker’s sister, Joyce Perser, were added as defendants.
The plaintiffs make the following accusations against Bradford in their amended complaint:
-
Five counts of negligence based on
Bradford s significant role in controlling Barry Walker s release from prison
, her actions as Walker s private attorney and attorney for his businesses and her failure to supervise Walker to ensure that he did not have access to minors;
- two counts of civil conspiracy for being part of a common plan to assist Barry Walker in obtaining and maintaining unsupervised access to minor females and for illegally transferring assets from Walker to family members;
- a claim for equitable relief involving undoing those illegal transfers of property from Walker to relatives; and
- punitive damages related to Bradford s knowledge that her conduct would likely result in injury to the plaintiffs and her reckless disregard of those risks.
Bradford’s role as a prosecutor and her overt efforts to get Walker released from prison in 2000 and to provide him with legal protection in the years that followed naturally brought her more attention than any other defendant, but the scope and depravity of Walker’s rapes and assaults drew attention to this case from the beginning. When NBC News closely examined Bradford’s involvement in Walker’s crimes and cover-ups in May 2013, they discovered shocking evidence:
Bradford had been a part-time deputy prosecutor in Pike County for a number of years by that point, and she also had a private business.
The lawsuit claims that she and other family members frequently witnessed prepubescent girls riding in Barry’s truck around Glenwood, riding horses with Barry at the fairgrounds, and spending the night at Barry’s residence, but they took no action to stop them.
According to the lawsuit, Bradford and at least two of Walker’s brothers talked about how odd it was that Barry, a registered sex offender, was always surrounded by young girls during monthly family gatherings.
Before Circuit Judge Randy Wright rejected Bradford and the other defendants’ applications to dismiss or postpone the case, this civil action against Barry Walker and several of his family members was scheduled to go to trial in Arkansas in April of this year. However, the parties decided to postpone the lawsuit until March 2026 after learning of other insurance policies that would affect the litigation and some defendants’ capacity to pay any verdict against them.
Bradford is running for reelection next year after being elected prosecutor for the first time in 2022. Bradford has stated that she will run again in spite of this case, which is expected to go to trial around the same time as the prosecutorial election.Erin Hunter, a lawyer from De Queen, has already expressed interest in running against her, calling the election a chance to rebuild the credibility and confidence of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in her campaign statement.
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