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July 20, 2006

Burns faces another charge

By Jayson Larson



Daniel E. Burns — the former Brownsboro ISD band director facing sentencing next week for tampering with a government witness — may not be done standing in front a jury of his peers.

Burns, 40, has a case heading toward trial in Nacogdoches County. The charge is similar to the one on which he was tried last week in Henderson County — improper relationship between an educator and a student — although the circumstances are different.

In the Henderson County case, Burns was accused of groping his former drum major, then 17, in the high school band hall in the spring of 2005. Jurors deadlocked on that case, and a mistrial was declared. He was found guilty on two counts of tampering with a government witness, based on allegations he coerced the drum major and a friend to recant their stories to school officials after they told of the alleged sexual relationship.

The Nacogdoches County case stems from an alleged sexual encounter Burns and the drum major had in the summer of 2005 at a band camp on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. The drum major, testifying against Burns last week, said Burns asked her to come down to his room late one night, and that he fondled her and eventually had sexual intercourse with her.

Nacogdoches County Prosecutor John Boundy is in trial this week and unavailable for comment, but District Attorney Stephanie Stephens said the case has another pre-trial setting for Aug. 25. A trial date could be set soon after.

The case in Nacogdoches County is filed in Judge Edwin Klein’s 420th District Court.

“We are prepared to meet that charge and prove his innocence,” said John Eastland, who represented Burns on his Henderson County cases.

The Henderson County District Attorney’s Office has the option of retrying the case against Burns for the alleged improper relationship with the former drum major. Prosecutor John Scott said last week he will wait for the outcome of a sentencing hearing Monday in Judge Carter Tarrance’s 392nd District Court before deciding what action to take next.

Burns faces up to two years on each of the two charges of tampering with a government witness, a state-jail felony for which a prisoner serves time day-for-day with no chance of parole. Tarrance will impose the sentence.

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