NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The $150 million lawsuit filed by Lauren Johansen’s father, Dr. Lance Johansen, claims that Nashville bonding companies were responsible for releasing Bricen Rivers from custody before he became the prime suspect in Johansen’s murder.
Brooke’s Bail Bonding, On Time Bail Bonding, several of their bond agents, and insurers are named in the lawsuit as defendants.
The lawsuit argues that the defendants “arranged for this killer to be set free without requiring payment, even of his full bond premium. Defendants let him travel to Mississippi, where his intended victim had sought sanctuary, despite unequivocal instructions of the court that he remain under continuous electronic monitoring in Davidson County.”
Bricen Rivers has been in custody since last July when he was charged in Mississippi for Lauren Johansen’s murder.
Prosecutors say Rivers traveled back to Mississippi and tracked down Johansen, before beating her to death and transporting her body to a cemetery in another county.
Harrison County deputies arrested Rivers not long after near the cemetery.
At the time, Rivers was still under GPS monitoring by Nakeda Wilhoite of Freedom Monitoring, who once told the courts that she had seen Rivers days earlier.
Wilhoite said it wasn’t until after she installed Rivers’ GPS device that she learned the Mississippi native was not supposed to leave Davidson County or have any contact with Johansen.
She says the bond conditions agreed to by her employer Brooke’s Bail Bonding, took days to reach her, and by then Rivers was already back in Mississippi.
Wilhoite says she told Rivers to return to Nashville, where she adjusted his GPS device, before warning him that he couldn’t leave the county or have any contact with Johansen.
Rivers left anyway and Wilhoite later admitted that she didn’t tell her employer about the meeting.
A six-judge panel issued a ruling last fall calling what happened in the Rivers case, “a calamity of human and institutional errors.”
Wilhoite is named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit. Still, she was one of many who testified about how a man arrested for beating up his girlfriend in Nashville, could allegedly track her down in Mississippi without any red flags.
The same Rivers who was arrested back in December 2023 for allegedly beating up Johansen in their car after a night out in Nashville. As the couple was leaving downtown, they got in the car where police said Rivers began hitting Johansen as he was driving and took her phone. Rivers eventually stopped the car in the parking lot where police say the assault continued, causing her to almost lose consciousness.
Rivers was held in a Nashville jail for months on a $250,000 bond before his bond was reduced to $150,000 and Brooke’s Bail Bonding and On Time Bonding entered the picture.
They arranged for his release by each putting up $75,000 to get Rivers out of jail, but the lawsuit claims Rivers’ mother came well short of how much she agreed to pay for Rivers’ release.
Rivers was released anyway on the condition that he remain in Nashville, have no contact with Johansen, and be forced to wear a GPS tracking device.
We later heard bond agents claim they only signed one page of the bond conditions, without seeing the rest of the document.
The lawsuit says this is around the time Rivers’ mother sent Brooke’s Bail Bonding $130 for a bus ticket so Rivers could return to Mississippi.
Rivers made it back to Mississippi while wearing the GPS monitor, but no one set any exclusion zones for where he could and could not stay.
“The Bail Bonding defendants acted negligently, recklessly, and or maliciously by not making a reasonable inquiry into the conditions of Bricen Rivers’ bail at the time they agreed to put up a bond for his release,” the lawsuit reads.
Davidson County court officials have also acknowledged that an error by one of their clerks meant the Davidson County Jail did not have Rivers’ bond conditions when he was released.
“When Mr. Rivers was released, I wasn’t notified. My daughter wasn’t notified,” Dr. Lance Johansen told us last summer.
“When you have a person that’s out on bond and they are in violation of the bond, you dial 911. That’s what you do,” Johansen continued.
Wilhoite has said she didn’t know if she could’ve had Rivers detained when he returned from Mississippi.
This wrongful death lawsuit asks for compensatory damages of $50 million for Lauren's death.
The lawsuit also requests $100 million in punitive damages for the defendants, “intentional, fraudulent, malicious, and or reckless conduct.”
We’ve reached out to Dr. Lance Johansen and Brooke Harlan-Evitts of Brooke’s Bail Bonding for comment but haven’t heard back.
Rivers, meanwhile, is awaiting trial on murder charges in Forrest County, Mississippi. The trial is expected to begin this fall.
