Nashville Musician Sentenced to 210 Months in Federal Prison for Trying to Molest 7-Year-Old Girl
Banjo Player Arrested While in Dallas to Perform with County Band

DALLAS—Abraham Eugene Spear, 31, of Nashville, Tennessee, was sentenced this morning by Chief U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater to 210 months in federal prison, following his guilty plea in February 2013 to one count of attempted enticement of a minor. He has been in custody since his arrest on September 21, 2012, in Dallas, on a related federal criminal complaint. Today’s announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.

According to documents filed in the case, approximately one month before he was to be in Dallas to perform at a local country music establishment, Spear sent a chat request to an undercover officer who was posing online as a “mom of curious girls.” He requested the “mom” send him photos of the girls and later asked the “mom” if she “still need[s] a teacher when I'm down there?”

Spear admitted that over the course of the next few weeks, he communicated, via the Internet and cell phone, with the undercover officer, whom he thought was a mother of two girls, ages 7 and 9. During these communications, many of which were sexual in nature, he persuaded the “mother” to allow him to meet her two girls to engage in different sexual acts with him. On September 20, 2012, Spear traveled from Tennessee to Dallas to perform with a band at a local bar, and he agreed to meet the “mom” at a restaurant in Dallas. After he was positively identified, Spear was arrested by FBI agents.

Spear also acknowledged that he had engaged in sexually explicit communications with other mothers of minor girls, including one where he offered to pay $200 to engage in sexual acts with one mother’s minor daughter.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “Resources.”