WILDWOOD, Fla. — A man from Largo was arrested in Sumter County when troopers with the Florida Highway Patrol pulled over a pickup truck towing a camper along I-75. With the assistance of a K9 unit, which alerted a trained dog, troopers inspected the inside and found thousands of pounds of marijuana.
Wednesday evening, FHP troopers arrested William Hicks, 55, close to Wildwood along I-75 while he was heading south. According to arrest records reviewed by 10 Tampa Bay News, Hicks was placed under arrest for allegedly trafficking marijuana.
Arrest records state that Hicks was pulled over after a trooper claimed that he was failing to maintain a single lane while driving and was following another car at a “not reasonable or prudent” distance.
Once he pulled over, Hicks said he was on the phone with his doctor, the interior “had a lived in appearance” and was unable to provide insurance or vehicle registration information. The trooper, records state, then asked Hicks to step out and go with him to the trooper’s car.
“While standing outside of the vehicle, I smelled a faint odor of fresh marijuana emitting from the pickup’s interior,” the trooper stated in the arrest affidavit.
Around that time, another trooper arrived and deployed Lobo, a trained police dog.
The K9 trooper with the dog “indicated to me that K9 Lobo had alerted,” records show. When Hicks was asked if there were any reasons why a trained dog would be alerted, Hicks said “no,” records state.
When the trooper patted Hicks, he said he smelled the “odor of fresh marijuana emitting from his clothing.” Then Hicks denied there being any hemp in the car.
Once troopers opened the camper, they smelled a strong odor of marijuana, which only grew stronger as they opened a second door.
“I observed stacks of large black plastic trash bags which were labeled with colored duct tape,” the trooper stated in the arrest affidavit, adding he determined them to be “vacuum sealed 1 pound bags of marijuana.”
Upon opening a bag and testing a small quantity of the marijuana using a field test kit, “the result was presumptive positive as cannabis/marijuana,” the trooper stated.
The trooper said they removed 15 large bags of marijuana from the front part of the camper and 47 large bags, as well as medium-sized paper bags of marijuana from the rear. After calculating the total weight, the trooper said it was 2,025.70 pounds with packaging.
Hicks was arrested and transported to Sumter County Jail and is facing multiple charges, such as drug and marijuana trafficking and possession.
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