Former DEA investigator now attorney for Bobby Salazar in alleged Fresno arson
Fresno restaurateur Bobby Salazar has hired an Atlanta-based defense attorney who has a history of working for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, according to court records.
Murdoch Walker II has appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California before but will need the court’s approval to represent Salazar, according to a court spokesperson. He’s also worked in federal courts in Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin, to name a few.
Salazar, 63, appeared in court Monday, when a judge relieved the public defender who had represented him until this week in the case in which Salazar faces arson and gun charges. Walker’s name did not appear in the court record until Tuesday.
Walker did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Veneman-Hughes said Monday he expected the proceedings to be delayed by the change in attorneys.
Walker previously worked in the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan before he was a narcotics and criminal investigator in South Carolina, according to a biography on the website for his firm, Lowther Walker.
Salazar used property to satisfy the collateral required on his $1 million bond, according to court records. What exact properties he used were not available as part of the public record as of Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors have accused Salazar of hiring the leader of the Screamin-Demons Motorcycle Club to set fire to a Bobby Salazar’s Restaurant on Blackstone Avenue in Fresno on April 2, 2024. That location had been run by a franchisee until closing three months before the fire.
Prosecutors say two people were caught by surveillance cameras as they set a fire using gas cans inside the building on the night of the blaze. They allege the two inside were 40-year-old Thomas Qualls and an unnamed woman.
Text messages included in the complaint filed in court also showed the two discussing watching the fire from a distance as well as being paid to set it.
Salazar received a nearly $1 million insurance payout after the flames damaged the eatery, records show. Salazar is due back in court on Oct. 9.
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 3:12 PM.
