Minister’s Sex-abuse Trial Postponed Again

By Kathy Mellott
The Tribune-Democrat
June 9, 2012

http://tribune-democrat.com/local/x136108033/Minister-s-sex-abuse-trial-postponed-again

The trial of a traveling minister accused of having sex with an 11-year-old girl in a motel has been delayed again.

Bedford County Judge Thomas Ling on Friday granted a continuance to defense attorney Thomas Crawford of Pittsburgh. Crawford had requested additional time to line up and subpoena witnesses to testify on behalf of the Rev. Walter Donald Bradshaw.

The trial, expected to last two or three days, had been scheduled next week. It has been rescheduled for

Sept. 19 and 20.

Bradshaw, 63, of Lexington, N.C., has ties to Cambria and Somerset counties.

He was in the area to preach at a church in western Bedford County in 2008 when police allege that an acquaintance, Gazella Oldham, 53, of Alum Bank, brought her daughter to a Bedford Township motel. The girl spent the night with Bradshaw and police allege he had sexual contact with her.

The girl testified at a preliminary hearing a year ago that her first physical contact with Bradshaw was in 2007 when he drove her home from school and kissed and touched her in the car.

He returned the next year for more revival meetings when the assault allegedly occurred at the Janey Lynn Motel.

Bradshaw traveled throughout the region as a minister and is well-known in the Cambria-Somerset area, where he often served as an evangelist at summer camp meetings, according to emails to The Tribune-Democrat and comments posted on the Internet during the past several months.

Oldham pleaded no contest to reduced charges in the case two months ago and likely will be sentenced following Bradshaw’s trial.

kmellott@tribdem.com