FORT WORTH, Texas - A former Keller ISD track coach will spend 10 years in federal prison for stalking a student and child pornography.
Ricky Badley, 45, is a former track coach and teacher at Timber Creek High School.
Badley, was indicted in September 2020 and later pleaded guilty to one count of stalking and one count of possession of child pornography. He was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to 131 months in federal prison.
Court documents say Badley admitted to stalking a 16-year-old junior student, calling her his "new favorite" and "little girl" and circulating false and vulgar messages about her to her family and friends.
The criminal complaint says when the victim started dating, Badley demanded that he meet her new boyfriend so he could "interrogate" him and approve of him. But the victim refused to introduce them because she didn’t want Badley to scare off the boy.
Badley became angry and texted the victim: "If you don’t trust me any more than that then don’t bother coming around." He later apologized to the victim and her mother for his behavior saying" "I’m going to step back... I lost your trust and will pay the consequences."
From December 2019 to April 2020, Badley admitted that he anonymously mailed the victim, her parents and her classmates numerous letters detailing fabricated sexual encounters between the victim and her teenage boyfriend. He also attempted to anonymously mail out 13 copies of a graphic haiku, which was intercepted by law enforcement before it reached addressees.
Badley also admitted he sent the girl’s parents an anonymous letter demanding she produce two TikTok videos of her eating a whole banana and of her twerking. The letter threatened to release false and disparaging information about the victim if the videos were not posted by a certain time.
Badley was forced to resign by the school in January 2020, when administrators became aware of his conduct.
That same month, the victim’s mother observed saw Badley driving by the family home. She texted him asking why he was driving by. Badley told the mother he checking on a friend who lived near them but wasn’t looking for her.
In June 2020, the victim noticed Bradley pulling into a parking spot at her private athletic practice before speeding away.
Federal investigators also uncovered pornographic images of a toddler stored on Badley’s laptop. In court documents, he admitted he knew the images depicted actual minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Larson prosecuted the case.