KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal inmate who escaped the Cass County jail but was recaptured has now been sentenced in a $4.1 million meth conspiracy.
Trevor Sparks was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison, plus 60 months, in federal prison without parole for drug, money laundering and gun charges.
He’s also been sentenced to another 33 months for escaping the Cass County jail last year, triggering a massive manhunt. Another inmate, Sergio Perez-Martinez, also escaped with Sparks and is still on the run.
Drug trafficking
Prosecutors say Sparks led a heavily armed drug-trafficking conspiracy and directed multiple assaults and two kidnappings, both of which led to murders.
Court records say Sparks’ drug organizations distributed about 400 kilograms of methamphetamine in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas in 2017 and 2018.
Sparks and several co-conspirators were arrested in December 2018 at a Kansas City home where police found multiple firearms, cocaine, meth and more.
A jury found Sparks guilty in November 2022 on all charges, including conspiracy to distribute, laundering proceeds from the drugs and illegal gun possession.
At his sentencing Wednesday, the court also ordered Sparks to pay $400,000, representing the profits he received from the drug trafficking conspiracy.
Jail escape
While awaiting sentencing, Sparks and Perez-Martinez, another federal inmate, were being held at the Cass County jail and escaped in December 2022.
It was later determined that Sparks and Martinez escaped by using deception and facility damage at the Cass County Jail and fled out of the jail.
Sparks was captured a few weeks later in Northeast Kansas City. His mother, stepfather and another accomplice have also been charged in helping Sparks escape.
That accomplice, who picked up Sparks and drove him to KC, was sentenced to 40 months in custody. Sparks pleaded guilty in June to charges related to the escape.
Perez-Martinez is still at large.
Two Kansas City murders
No one was charged or convicted of it, but prosecutors say members of Sparks’ drug trafficking group were found responsible for two 2018 murders.
The court says members of Sparks’ group kidnapped two people in St. Louis and restrained and beat a man. Members took the kidnapped man and woman to the Kansas City area where they were eventually killed. The man’s body was found in a burning car in Bates City, and the woman was found shot and killed near a flea market in Northeast Kansas City.
The two co-conspirators in the alleged killings have already been sentenced to decades in prison on similar charges to Sparks.
In all, there are over 30 co-conspirators in this drug trafficking case, who have all been sentenced now.
