I guess a cop would best know how to run from cops? After years of being a fugitive, the law has finally apparently caught up with former Chicago Police Sgt. Eddie C. Hicks, who was arrested in Detroit early Tuesday morning.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Hicks, now 68, has been the focus of an international manhunt since 2003, the FBI reports. He was ordered held in Detroit on Tuesday until he could be brought back to Chicago to face the music for his old alleged crimes, those of federal drug-conspiracy charges.
And, boy, do the details of the allegations read almost like the scene of a movie or a crime show.
Way back in 2001, Hicks was accused of leading a group of crooked cops who robbed drug dealers, pocketed their bad money and then sold the stolen drugs to other pushers. After Hicks disappeared the day before his trial in 2003, he was presumed to have traveled to Brazil, the Tribune reports.
But Hicks, though vanished, still looked out for No. 1—himself—and, of course, those he cared for, officials say.
From the Tribune:
While he was on the lam, Hicks repeatedly conducted financial transactions in Chicago to enrich himself and the people closest to him. Two years after Hicks vanished, his signature appeared on land records giving his son—also a Chicago police officer—the South Side property Hicks had used to secure his $150,000 bond. In addition, by the time of the Tribune investigation in 2011, monthly police pension checks totaling more than $300,000 had been paid to Hicks’ bank account or cashed by his wife.
Appearing in court in Detroit Tuesday, Hicks gave up his right to a hearing to establish his identity and consented to being transported to Chicago immediately.
Hicks, a veteran narcotics officer with the Chicago Police Department (of course, he was a narcotics officer), retired while under federal investigation in March 2000. Federal authorities accuse Hicks of leading a merry band of rogue cops for almost a decade, executing fake search warrants to feed off drug stash houses and also stealing drugs and money from dealers during illegal traffic stops.
Hicks’ contact, according to the Tribune, was Arthur Veal—a major cocaine dealer who had been feeding Hicks and his crew, which included another sergeant and two former police civilian employees—information about possible targets for them to rob. However, in 2000 Veal himself was busted and sang like a bird, telling authorities about his history with the officers.
So the FBI arranged a little bust.
In the end, three of Hicks’ four co-defendants ended up pleading guilty by the time Hicks’ trial was scheduled to start in June 2003. Hicks, for his part, as we know, didn’t even bother to show up for his trial.
Read more at the Chicago Tribune.