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A former Anderson County High School Band Director and teacher was sentenced  to 25 years in prison at U.S. District Court in Lexington after he pleaded guilty to production of child pornography.

According to his plea agreement, Patrick Howard Brady, 38, used text messaging, FaceTime and a social media app (VSCO) to engage a minor into a romantic and sexual relationship. Specifically, beginning in the summer of 2022, Brady and the victim, who local media outlets report was a freshman in high school, engaged in a sexually explicit relationship, starting via text, calls and FaceTime, eventually occurring in person, multiple times, including at the high school.

Law enforcement began investigating the relationship between Brady and the victim in May 2023. When law enforcement arrested Brady and seized his cell phone, the VSCO application had been removed from his phone. Brady admitted that, on two or more occasions, he knowingly used a minor victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of transmitting live visual depictions of that conduct.

Under federal law, Brady must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for the rest of his life.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, Kentucky State Police and the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Melton is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet as well as to identify and rescue victims. 

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov.