TEXARKANA, Texas–A former Texas High School band director was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison Tuesday for soliciting sex from male students.
Brandon Neil Sams, 48, previously pled guilty to coercement and enticement of a minor. On Tuesday he was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III at a hearing in Texarkana’s downtown federal building.
Damien Diggs, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, said in a statement that, “We expect teachers to protect and keep their students safe from harm, not to abuse their positions of trust to take advantage of them.”
“Mr. Sams used his access to teenagers to groom them to participate with him in illegal sexual activity,” Diggs said. “The sentence he received today should serve as a warning to all child predators: we will find you, and you will face justice.”
There is no parole from a federal prison sentence although offenders may earn up to 54 days per year as credit toward their term for good behavior.
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.
Sams became “visibly nervous” when asked if he would allow an officer to examine his phone. While the officer was out of the room making arrangements to acquire a search warrant for Sams’ phone, Sams left the building.
When the officer approached Sams in the parking lot and told him he was not free to leave, Sams fled. The Texarkana Arkansas Police Department and Texarkana Texas Police Department assisted Texarkana Independent School District police in locating Sams at his residence in the 1300 block of Hudson Place where he was arrested for felony evading arrest.
Sams told Arkansas-side detectives that he had thrown his phone out the passenger-side window of his car while traveling on Interstate 30. Officers with a K9 unit searched the area but were unable to find the phone. TAPD officers acquired a warrant for Sams’ home but were unable to locate the device there either.
Sams has been charged with improper relationship between educator and student, evading arrest and tampering with evidence in state court in Bowie County. Those charges remain pending and court records indicate there are outstanding warrants for his arrest.
Sams’ plea documents in his federal case include an admission that he targeted two boys under 18 and that he “fled and destroyed my cell phone because I did not want it used in a criminal prosecution against me.”
