Michael Bushnell 
Publisher

Trevor Scott Sparks, 34, of Kansas City, a federal prison escapee, was sentenced in Federal Court on Wednesday to life in prison without parole for his role in a $4.1 million dollar armed drug trafficking conspiracy that also involved kidnapping and two murders.

U.S. District Judge Greg Kays added an additional five years on Sparks’ sentence for the drug, gun and money laundering charges and an additional 33 months for the escape. The court also ordered Sparks to pay restitution of $400,000 representing profits received in the drug trafficking conspiracy. Sparks was found guilty on all counts by a jury during a week-long trial in November 2022.

During 2017 and 2018, Sparks and a number of co-conspirators operated a methamphetamine distribution ring out of two residences in Kansas City, one of which was located in the 5500 block of Smart Avenue. Sparks and the co-conspirators he supplied are believed to have distributed approximately 400 kilograms of methamphetamine, with a street value of over $7,500 per kilogram, in less than two years.

Sparks was also instrumental in ordering the kidnapping and murder of two people he thought knew the whereabouts of roughly $30,000 in stolen drugs and money. In August, 2018, James “Old School” Hampton was seized in St. Louis by some of Sparks’ associates because it was believed he knew the whereabouts of drugs and money stolen by co-conspirator David Richards.

When it became apparent that Hampton didn’t or wouldn’t help Sparks recover the drugs and money, he was beaten and tortured to death, then tossed in the trunk of his own car and driven to Kansas City where the car was hidden in a garage near the Smart Avenue home being used by Sparks.

Brittanie Broyles, who was with Hampton at the time of his capture, witnessed the torture and beating meted out to Hampton and was brought to Kansas City as well. On August 6, 2018, Hampton’s vehicle was found burning in Bates City, Mo., roughly 30 miles east of Kansas City on I-70. Two days later, Broyles’ body was found near two telephone poles in a parking lot in the 6800 block of St. John Avenue with two bullet holes in her head.

Following his trial in November 2022, Sparks was being held in the Cass County jail awaiting sentencing. On December 6, 2022, Sparks and another federal inmate named Sergio Perez-Martinez escaped custody. Sparks’ freedom was short-lived and he was captured on December 30 near Smart and Drury Avenues, close to where his operation had run prior to his arrest. Also charged in that escape case was Perez-Martinez, Sparks’ mother and stepfather, and another man, who was the co-conspirator that stored the car with Hampton in it.  Sparks was also sentenced Wednesday for that escape to which he pled guilty on June 28, 2023. Perez-Martinez remains at large.

Sparks was the main defendant in this case that had 32 co-defendants, all who have pled guilty and been sentenced in those two cases.