Texarkana High School Band Instructor Sentenced to 25 years in Federal Prison for Child Exploitation Violation
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Texas
TEXARKANA, Texas – A Texarkana man has been sentenced to federal prison for child exploitation violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs.
Brandon Neil Sams, 48, pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor while serving as a band instructor at Texas High School in Texarkana, Texas and was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Robert W. Schroeder, III, on July 16, 2024.
According to information presented in court, Sams communicated with several of his minor students through social media and messaging applications to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce them to participate in sexual activity. Sams provided his victims with gifts, such as cell phones, clothes, and prepaid credit cards to encourage them to do what he asked of them. After the Texas High police department uncovered Sams’s criminal activity, several victims came forward to explain that they had been victimized by Sams in the past but had been too afraid to come forward about it for fear of backlash.
Sams came to the attention of law enforcement in 2022 when a boy’s parents reported him after seeing disturbing exchanges between Sams and their child on a cell phone that they believed was evidence of sexual grooming common among pedophiles, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The parents provided an officer with a debit card and a credit card which Sams gave the boy to use and showed text messages on the boy’s phone allegedly sent by Sams using WhatsApp in which he speaks of “gay for pay.” Sams gave the student a laptop computer in exchange for a sexually graphic photo, the affidavit said.
“We expect teachers to protect and keep their students safe from harm, not to abuse their positions of trust to take advantage of them,” said U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs. “Mr. Sams used his access to teenagers to groom them to participate with him in illegal sexual activity. The sentence he received today should serve as a warning to all child predators: we will find you, and you will face justice.”
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
This case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security-Homeland Security Investigations and the Texarkana, Texas Independent School District. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Austin Wells.
