Washington County officials traumatized family by holding onto infant's body for months, lawsuit alleges
WASHINGTON, Pa. (KDKA) — A lawsuit alleges three Washington County officials of trumping up charges against a man accused of killing his child and traumatizing his family by holding onto the body for months.
Jordan Clarke has been in jail for more than two years awaiting trial in the death of his 2-month-old baby, but his attorney says his client is innocent and being framed by Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh with the help of a judge and the county coroner.
"This should have never been filed in the first place," attorney Noah Geary said. "There was no evidence, and Walsh steered this and concocted a murder here."
In a suit filed this week, Geary accuses Walsh of ignoring evidence and taking extra legal steps to prosecute his client, including enlisting Common Pleas Judge John DiSalle and Washington County Coroner Tim Warco to suspend the funeral and withhold 2-month-old Sawyer Clarke's body from the family for seven months, resulting in advanced decomposition.
"It's traumatic to the mother, the father, grandparents, aunts, relatives," Geary said. "Seven months of totally unnecessary and illegal decomposition of a 2-month-old little boy."
Neither DiSalle nor Walco would comment, and Walsh declined except to say, "This is par for the course for Mr. Geary. He's representing a person accused of killing a child. I would think that's a bigger issue."
But the suit is the latest in an ongoing legal battle over the fate of Jordan Clarke, who told police at the time he tripped and fell on his child, rendering the baby unconscious. Sawyer Clarke died two days later at UPMC Children's Hospital.
Although the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the manner of death "could not be determined," the suit alleges Walsh got an order from Judge DiSalle to retain the body and directed/influenced Walco to state the death was caused by "shaken baby syndrome".
"Walsh is trying to make this a crime when there is no crime," Geary said.
While Geary accuses Walsh of trying to paint himself as "tough on crime DA," in prior reports, Walsh has cited testimony from a doctor at UPMC Children's Hospital who said Sawyer Clarke's injuries were not consistent with a fall: blunt force trauma to the head and torso and bruises on the child's body.
"We had a preliminary hearing on this where medical experts, doctors, have testified as to their opinions to how the origins of these injuries came to be," Walsh told KDKA-TV in 2022.
The court held Clarke for trial and has rejected prior motions to dismiss the charges and prevent Walsh from seeking the death penalty, which he is in this case and eight others.
"If you kill a child under these circumstances I will seek the highest form of punishment allowable by law," Walsh told KDKA-TV in 2022.
Attorney Geary wants these charges dismissed and his client released from jail. If this civil suit is successful, he's seeking financial damages from the district attorney, judge and coroner.