KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Trevor Scott Sparks, a Kansas City, Missouri, federal defendant who escaped after trial and was recaptured, was sentenced in federal district court yesterday for his role in leading a $4.1 million heavily armed drug-trafficking conspiracy, and directing two kidnappings, both resulting in murders, and numerous assaults. The drug trafficking organization (DTO) Sparks led distributed approximately 400 kilograms of methamphetamine in the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas in 2017 and 2018.
Sparks, 34, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Greg Kays to life imprisonment, plus 60 months consecutive, in federal prison without parole on the drug, money, and gun charges, all consecutive to 33 months for the escape. The court also ordered Sparks to pay a money judgment of $400,000.00, which represents the profits he received from the drug-trafficking conspiracy. That forfeiture amount is based on the unlawful distribution of approximately 100 kilograms of methamphetamine, based on an average street sale price of $7,500.00 per kilogram, and an average cost to the DTO of $3,500.00 a kilogram. Sparks and the co-conspirators he supplied are believed to have distributed approximately 400 kilograms of methamphetamine in less than 2 years.
On Nov. 7, 2022, Sparks was found guilty by a jury of all counts presented during the weeklong trial. The charges included participating in conspiracies to distribute methamphetamine and launder drug proceeds from Jan. 1, 2017, to Dec. 18, 2018, possessing firearms in relation to that drug-trafficking crime, and to being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition. Sparks and several of his co-conspirators were arrested out of a residence on Smart Avenue in the Northeast area of Kansas City, Missouri, on Dec. 18, 2018. Located in that residence were numerous firearms, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, United States currency, drug ledgers, and other indicia of drug trafficking. This is the same residence where at least two of the DTO related assaults occurred.
While no one was charged with nor convicted at trial of it, members of the Sparks DTO were found responsible at sentencing by the court for two murders. In early August 2018, James “Old School” Hampton was seized in St. Louis by members of the Sparks DTO at the direction of Sparks. Hampton was seized because the drug conspiracy was convinced Hampton could help find the drugs and money stolen by co-conspirator David Richards.
When they realized Hampton could not or would not help, Hampton was restrained, beaten, and tortured. Hampton was then kidnapped and transported from St. Louis to Kansas City in the trunk of his own car. Brittanie Broyles, who was with Hampton and witnessed him being beaten, tortured, restrained, and kidnapped, was also kidnapped and taken to Kansas City.
Once in Kansas City, Hampton was left in the trunk of his car and he and his car were secreted in a co-conspirator’s garage near the Smart residence. Broyles managed to obtain control of another co-conspirator’s cellular telephone and surreptitiously send text messages to friends and family in St. Louis about her and “Old School’s” plight.
Once that was discovered by the DTO, Sparks directed the DTO to move from one hotel to another, thereby thwarting efforts to locate Broyles. Her friends and family and law enforcement were unable to locate her before she was murdered by members of the Sparks DTO.
On Aug. 6, 2018, Hampton’s car and body were discovered burning in Bates City, Missouri. This was after members of the DTO retrieved Hampton’s car (and body) from the secreted location and Sparks directed them to take it and burn it because of the odor emanating from the vehicle and to destroy the evidence and Hampton’s body.
Witnesses and video identified co-defendant Gerald Lee Ginnings of Grandview, Missouri, being followed by co-defendant Markus Michael A. Patterson, of Kansas City, Missouri, in another co-conspirator’s car, as Ginnings drove Hampton’s car with his body in the trunk to Bates City, Missouri, where it was found by the Sni Valley Fire Department fully engulfed. Once they extinguished the flames, Hampton’s desecrated body was found in what was left of the trunk. Sparks forgave a drug debt of Ginnings for this duty.
On Aug. 8, 2018, Broyles’s body was recovered near the Super Flea in the Northeast area of Kansas City, Missouri. She had been murdered by two gunshots to her head. While not charged nor convicted of it, the court at sentencing found that witnesses and evidence implicated Sparks in ordering her killing because of what she knew about Hampton. Ginnings and Patterson were likewise implicated as the two responsible for this murder.
Ginnings was sentenced Aug. 25, 2023, to 520 months in federal prison on similar charges to Sparks. Co-defendant Patterson was sentenced Aug. 17, 2023, to 560 months on the same charges.
Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone involved in drug trafficking to possesses firearms related to that trafficking and it is also illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to be in possession of any firearm or ammunition. Sparks has prior felony convictions for robbery, drug offenses, and assault.
Sparks was the main defendant over two indictments with 32 co-defendants, all who have pleaded guilty and been sentenced in those two cases.
On Dec. 6, 2022, Sparks and fellow federal inmate Sergio Perez-Martinez escaped the Cass County jail where they were being held for sentencing in their respective federal cases. On Dec. 30, 2022, Sparks was apprehended in the Northeast area of Kansas City, Missouri. Also charged in that escape case was Perez-Martinez (still at large), Sparks’ mother and stepfather, and another man, who was the co-conspirator that stored the car with Hampton in it. Sparks was also sentenced yesterday for that escape to which he pled guilty on June 28, 2023.
These cases were prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bruce Rhoades and Robert M. Smith. They were investigated by the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department; the Sni Valley Fire Department; the Jackson, Lafayette, Buchanan, Phelps, and Cass County, Missouri Sheriff’s Departments; the FBI; the Jackson County Drug Task Force; the Missouri State Highway Patrol; and the St. James, Missouri Police Department.
