Blue Springs man sentenced for aiding the escape of 2 inmates from Cass County jail
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A Blue Springs man was sentenced to 16 months in prison after helping two inmates escape from a Cass County jail in December.
John Douglas Baxter, 57, of Blue Springs was charged with one count of assisting Trevor Scott Sparks, 33, of Kansas City and 43-year-old Sergio Perez Martinez of Panorama City, Calif., escape from the Cass County jail in early December.
Baxter was sentenced to 16 months in custody consecutive to any sentence he receives from his pending state case.
Sparks was arrested three weeks after escaping the jail, but Perez Martinez remains at large. Sparks will face 33 months in prison for the escape on top of a life sentence he received for running a drug trafficking ring and a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise that was linked to two killings.
In November, Sparks was found guilty of running a methamphetamine drug trafficking ring worth an estimated $4.1 million. Prosecutors said he ran a criminal organization that include dozens of co-conspirators from Kansas City to St. Louis. The ring was also tied to two area killings in August 2018.
Sparks allegedly planned the kidnappings of James Hampton and Brittanie Broyles, who were later killed. He was not convicted of a crime directly related to their deaths, but was found responsible in federal court, prosecutors said.
