Former Nassau County sheriff’s Sgt. James Darrell Hickox of Callahan. | News4Jax
Published on January 27, 2025 at 12:03 pm
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A former Nassau County police sergeant was sentenced Monday to 17½ years in federal prison for conspiring to distribute narcotics, fraud and tax evasion.
James Darrell Hickox was a task force officer with the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2017 to 2023, prosecutors say. That included theft of more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana seized as evidence, the U.S. attorney said in a news release.
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Hickox faced a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison.
“When I consider everything, I want to get an idea of what causes someone to make bad choices. I don’t understand you,” U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger told him, according to News4Jax, a Jacksonville Today news partner. “As a sworn law enforcement officer, you disgraced law enforcement and engaged in conduct that broke the public trust, shamed your family and community and put them at risk.”
Hickox and former state Trooper Joshua Earrey covered up the theft by submitting falsified paperwork showing the marijuana had been destroyed, prosecutors said. They also stole a kilogram of cocaine from evidence and gave it to a drug dealer to sell for them.
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Earrey pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to distribute narcotics, possession of firearms and ammunition and fraud, prosecutors said. No sentencing date has been set for him yet.
