Eastern District of Kentucky | Former Anderson County Band Director Convicted of Producing Child Pornography

LEXINGTON, Kentucky – Patrick Howard Brady, 38, a former Anderson County High School principal and teacher, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell to 25 years in prison for producing child pornography.

Brady was a teacher at Anderson County High School and served as the band director until May 15, 2023. According to his plea agreement, Brady used text messages, FaceTime, and a social media app (VSCO) to engage a minor in a romantic and sexual relationship. Beginning in the summer of 2022, Brady and the victim began a sexually explicit relationship, which began via text messages, phone calls, and FaceTime, and eventually occurred in person on multiple occasions, including at the high school.

Law enforcement began investigating Brady’s relationship with the victim in May 2023. When law enforcement arrested Brady and seized his cell phone, he had deleted the VSCO application 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 sentence. After his release from prison, he will be supervised for life by the U.S. Probation Office.

Carlton S. Shier, IV, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Michael E. Stansbury, FBI Special Agent in Charge, Louisville Field Office; Russell Coleman, Kentucky Attorney General; and Col. Phillip J. Burnett, Jr., Commissioner of the Kentucky State Police, jointly announced the sentence.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, and the Kentucky State Police. 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 the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Criminal Division’s Child Abuse and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children online, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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