Jana Bradford, the niece of child rapist Barry Walker, is now a defendant in a civil lawsuit amended this week to include her name. Bradford is being sued in her individual capacity and not as the newly elected prosecutor of Pike County. 

The 58-year-old Walker will spend the rest of his days in prison for the rapes of more than 30 prepubescent girls over the span of two decades. Bradford served as deputy prosecutor in the years prior to Walker’s arrest in July 2022, and as such was a mandated reporter of child maltreatment.

With knowledge of his behavior and taking note that he appeared to continue having relations with young girls, Bradford would not allow her own daughter to be around Walker. But she and others never “took any steps to protect other prepubescent females” from him, according to the complaint.

The suit claims that Bradford did, however, take many steps to protect her uncle — even up to the weeks before her election as prosecuting attorney. After an unsuccessful petition by Bradford in 2004 to have Walker pardoned, just months after he had intercourse with a three-year-old, she would later attempt to have him removed from the sex offender registry in 2018. 

Between those attempts, Walker had been arrested in 2014 after five documented complaints were made to law enforcement concerning his maltreatment of females. The petition to remove Walker from the sex offender registry, which Bradford filled out on his behalf, failed to mention his 2014 arrest but noted, rather, that he is “not likely to pose a threat to the safety of others.”

The lawsuit states that Bradford knew about the specific details of each of those investigations, having discussed family matters at weekly family gatherings. Walker and Bradford met on “numerous occasions” to discuss the 2014 investigations, and the pair “worked collectively to develop a strategy to protect Walker with respect to the investigations because they knew a negative finding could harm the family’s reputation and political interests.”

But behind Walker’s back, Bradford would converse with other relatives about seeing Walker driving around Glenwood with prepubescent females, riding horses with them at the Pike County Fairgrounds, hanging out with them at his home and hosting sleepovers “regularly”.

When it came to his 2014 arrest, though, Bradford and other relatives “circled the wagons” to defend him in order to keep his business in operation, even putting up $25,000 to bail him out of jail. The family “worked collectively to develop a strategy to protect Walker with respect to the investigations because they knew a negative finding could harm the family’s reputation and political interests,” the lawsuit states.

There was also discussion among the group that they could not report Barry Walker’s April 2022 rendezvous with two girls before Bradford’s election date in May. The complaint does not indicate whether Bradford was part of that discussion.

Bradford has come under fire recently both in court documents and in media reports for protecting relatives from prosecution, including a nephew who killed a man in Glenwood after she fought to reduce his previous felony charges.

Six individuals and two Walker-owned businesses are now named as defendants. The number of plaintiffs totals 11. The complaint is now up to 164 pages in length and includes numerous transcribed discussions between an incarcerated Walker and his brother, who is among the defendants. The Texarkana-based Mercy Carter Law Firm is representing the plaintiffs.

FULL COVERAGE:
• Sex offender, former physician charged with rape (original story)
• ‘Several thousand’ videos, photos of child porn found at Walker home
• Walker sentenced night after beating at jail
• Indictments detail allegations against rapist’s relatives
• Police arrest 2 for helping Walker conceal rapes