For about five years U.S. Drug Enforcement officer and Nassau county sheriff’s deputy James Darrell Hickox used his position with law enforcement to moonlight as a drug dealer. He once even stole cocaine from an evidence locker and replaced it with a 3D printed brick. His various schemes didn’t work out and now he’s been sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Hickox was arrested in 2023 and pleaded guilty to the various charges against him in 2024. He ran his drug dealing game while employed as a deputy for the Nassau County Sheriff’s department in Florida and as a DEA agent. He pleaded guilty to charges of stealing drugs and money, transferring drugs to dealers for sale on the street, and tax evasion. He made more than $420,000 as a drug dealer and the IRS was upset it didn’t get its cut.
The schemes weren’t sophisticated. Hicox worked with other law enforcement officers to set up drug busts and conduct traffic stops of known drug dealers. They’d do the bust and skim money and drugs off the top or steal them from evidence and then give them to street-level dealers to sell for them. In one instance, they stole more than 1,000 pounds of weed from an evidence locker, claimed to have burned it, and sold it.
https://gizmodo.com/dea-officer-who-3d-printed-cocaine-gets-17-years-in-prison-2000557604
