KANSAS CITY, Mo. – An Indictment from earlier this year in the Western District of Missouri Federal Court charging individuals with escaping confinement and other individuals with assisting them, resulted in an incarceration sentence of 16 months for one of those charged, consecutive to a pending State of Missouri case.
Trevor Scott Sparks, 33, Kansas City, Missouri, and Sergio Perez Martinez, 43, Panorama City, California, were charged in a two-count indictment with escape from confinement and aiding or assisting each other in escape from confinement. Another individual, John Douglas Baxter, 57, of Blue Springs, Missouri, was also charged in the indictment with a single count of aiding or assisting in the escape.
As of the drafting of this release, Perez Martinez remains at large, although Sparks was re-arrested Dec. 30, 2022. Baxter, who has been in custody pending resolution of his charges since Sparks was captured, was sentenced Wednesday for his role in assisting that escape. The court sentenced him to 16 months in custody, consecutive to any sentence he may receive in a pending state case that resulted from Missouri moving to revoke his parole from a prior state felony conviction.
After arrests on federal felony warrants, and because of jury trial convictions and guilty pleas to various felony charges contained within several Western District of Missouri (WDMO) Federal Grand Jury indictments and various orders of WDMO Federal District Court Judge D. Greg Kays, Trevor Scott Sparks and Sergio Perez Martinez were confined in the Cass County, Missouri, Jail on multiple federal felonies.
Federal, state, and local law enforcement began investigating the escape of Sparks and Martinez from the Cass County Jail on or about Dec. 5, 2022. On Dec. 6, 2022, the United States Marshals Service was notified by Cass County, Missouri, that Sparks escaped from confinement and was seen leaving the facility at 10:22 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2022.
It was later determined that Sparks and Martinez, another inmate in the Cass County facility, escaped through subterfuge and damage to the facility from the Cass County Jail and fled east outside the jail into the surrounding rural community. From there, a co-defendant picked them up in his vehicle and transported them to his apartment in Kansas City, Missouri, where they obtained clothes and food. They were then transported into the Northeast area of the Kansas City metropolitan area.
Sparks and his mother, co-defendant Dawn Branstietter, were subsequently arrested in this same general area on Dec. 30, 2022. Branstietter’s husband, defendant Baxter, was also later arrested on the same aiding escape charges.
Branstietter and Baxter provided food, clothing, and housing to Sparks while Sparks was a fugitive. Branstietter is scheduled for sentencing today.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bruce Rhoades and Robert Smith. It is being investigated by the United States Marshal Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Kansas City Police Department, and the Cass County Sheriff’s Department with other law enforcement agencies also assisting.
