DEA Officer Who 3D-Printed Cocaine Will get 17 Years in Jail

For about 5 years U.S. Drug Enforcement officer and Nassau county sheriff’s deputy James Darrell Hickox used his place with regulation enforcement to moonlight as a drug vendor. He as soon as even stole cocaine from an evidence locker and changed it with a 3D printed brick. His numerous schemes didn’t work out and now he’s been sentenced to 17 years in jail.

Hickox was arrested in 2023 and pleaded responsible to the assorted fees in opposition to him in 2024. He ran his drug dealing recreation whereas employed as a deputy for the Nassau County Sheriff’s division in Florida and as a DEA agent. He pleaded responsible to fees of stealing medicine and cash, transferring medicine to sellers on the market on the road, and tax evasion. He made greater than $420,000 as a drug vendor and the IRS was upset it didn’t get its reduce.

The schemes weren’t refined. Hicox labored with different regulation enforcement officers to arrange drug busts and conduct traffic stops of known drug dealers. They’d do the bust and skim cash and medicines off the highest or steal them from proof after which give them to street-level sellers to promote for them. In a single occasion, they stole greater than 1,000 kilos of weed from an proof locker, claimed to have burned it, and offered it.

In one of many more strange schemes, Hickox stole a kilogram of cocaine from an proof locker and changed it with a brick he’d made in a 3D printer. He sprinkled the faux brick with actual cocaine in an try to make it look actual. That is the drug-stealing equal of a teen bulking up their mattress with stuffed animals within the hope their dad and mom don’t discover they’ve snuck out.

When the police found out what was occurring and raided Hickox’s home, it was stocked with 4 weapons pulled from proof lockers and marked for destruction in addition to an illegally modified machine gun. Then they stumbled on his storage, which was marked by the signal “Gator’s Man Cave.”

Inside “Gator’s Man Cave,” cops discovered the medicine. There have been 260 drugs containing methamphetamine and 263 grams of a powdery mixture of cocaine and fentanyl.

The motivations behind Hickox’s scheme shifted relying on who was requested. In court docket, Hickox mentioned this was a Breaking Unhealthy scenario. He’d gotten a most cancers analysis and that he was anxious about leaving cash behind for his household after he died. “I acknowledge the most cancers analysis and well being points, however I don’t see how that causes a person to interact in what you probably did. I’m having a tough time with that,” Decide Wendy Berger mentioned.

Speaking to an area TV station, Hickox’s dad and mom mentioned that the DEA had turned him right into a drug vendor. “They must dwell two lives. You’re out slingin’ dope for the DEA and then you definately go residence and be a household man,” his father mentioned. “I believe as a result of he was round it for 10 years. He was a drug vendor for 10 years. If he hadn’t had a badge…that’s the job DEA has him doin’…he was a drug vendor. So he turns into a drug vendor and everybody’s actin’ stunned. Why are you so stunned? That’s what ya’ll had him doin’ for 10 years.”