United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

FORMER TEXAS A&M PROFESSOR SENTENCED TO
NEARLY FOUR YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE

United States Attorney Richard B. Roper announced that Andrew Paul Spicer, a former Associate Professor at Texas A&M Health Science Center in Houston, Texas, was sentenced this morning in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, by the Honorable Terry R. Means, United States District Judge, to 46 months imprisonment. Spicer, age 37, pled guilty in October 2005 to a two-count superseding information that charged him with traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and transporting obscene matters to a minor. Judge Means also ordered that upon his release from prison, Spicer serve a lifetime of supervised release and register as a sex offender.

Spicer admitted that in October 2003 he drove from San Antonio, Texas, to Weatherford, Texas, with the purpose of engaging in sexual intercourse with a minor. He used the Internet and MSN Hotmail in an attempt to transfer obscene matter consisting of sexually explicit conduct and lewd, lascivious, indecent and filthy pictures to a minor. A detective with the Weatherford Police Department, acting in an undercover capacity, encountered Spicer in a chat room and assumed the identity of a 13-year-old minor female named “Amanda.” During the initial internet communication, Spicer emailed “Amanda” a picture of himself as well as a movie-file depicting sexual acts between an adult male and an adult female.

Later that day, Spicer again contacted “Amanda” and offered to drive up and “play until her heart was content.” Spicer and “Amanda” had further internet communications and Spicer gave “Amanda” his office telephone number. A law enforcement officer posed as “Amanda” during a recorded undercover telephone conversation between Spicer and “Amanda” which included graphic discussions of sexual activity. Spicer and “Amanda” continued to communicate over the Internet and they agreed to meet in a parking lot located close to “Amanda’s” home, however on October 7, 2003, when Spicer arrived at the arranged meeting site, he was arrested by Weatherford police officers.

United States Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the Weatherford Police Department, the Parker County District Attorney’s Major Case Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Aisha Saleem.

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