US conductor is jailed for sex with underage girl
mainAn award-winning conductor and ‘inspirational’ music professor has been jailed in Kansas for 31 months for offences committed in 2016 against a 15 year-old girl.
Carlos Espinosa-Machado, now 35, admitted to one count of indecent liberties with a child and one count of furnishing alcohol to a minor for illicit purposes. He was further charged with one count of aggravated indecent liberties with the child, two counts of criminal sodomy and one count of possessing marijuana.
Carlos Espinosa-Machado was associate conductor with the Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City, conductor in residence of the Taneycomo Festival Orchestra in Branson, Mo., and music director of the Kansas City Medical Arts Symphony.
Until his conviction last year, he was professor of music at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina.
He will remain on the sex offenders’ register for the rest of his life. Court report here.
Although Espinosa appears to have been entrapped by police when he finally was caught, threatening to expose nude pictures of a girl for refusing to have sex goes beyond sexual harassment, even if she were of age which she clearly was not.
Levine may have tried to bribe his victims, but even he never, at least to our knowledge, threatened to expose anyone in such a way.
I hope this guy was not an immigrant (and I’m afraid he might be if he still uses a double surname) because if he was this story will play right into the hands of the bigoted anti immigrant nuts.
I hope this guy can get into a backup career because his career in music is over since most music jobs at any level include the possibility of working with or teaching minors.
I know that as a nurse and as a former caseworker that at least outside of the music industry pretty much any job that involves working with or potentially working with minors involves a criminal background check. I assume that this is becoming the norm in music also, at least in the US.
As Gelb said, this is a tragedy for all concerned
The situation described in the article was not “entrapment”.
Entrapment is when the police trick someone into committing an illegal act.
The situation described in the article is that the police encountered him committing an illegal act, one they had not talked him into nor had any previous knowledge of.
Oy vey!
Yikes