Opinion ID: 3061638
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Arrest and Conspiracy

Text: On January 27, 2009, defendant Hicklin and co-defendants Airrik Sanders and Rashad Mackey were arrested after a traffic stop near Jackson, Georgia. In searching their car, police officers found nineteen stolen commercial checks and four counterfeit North Carolina driver’s licenses. Two checks had altered payees and a total face amount of $15,005.70. Three checks had altered payees and altered face amounts, totaling $11,219.40. Fourteen checks were unaltered, with a total face amount of $45,436.14. The total value of the nineteen checks was thus $71,661.24. During the ensuing investigation, defendant Hicklin admitted that he, Sanders, and Mackey participated in a conspiracy led by co-defendant Jonathon Counts to steal checks from businesses in Georgia and North Carolina and to employ homeless persons to negotiate the checks using counterfeit driver’s licenses. Defendant Hicklin told investigators that he, Sanders, and Mackey had stolen checks from businesses in the Savannah, Georgia, and Charlotte, North 2 Carolina areas, while co-defendant Counts stole checks from businesses near Atlanta, Georgia. They did so by removing mail from postal boxes and extracting the checks. Defendant Hicklin’s role was to alter the payee on the checks, and in some cases the amount payable also, by using a sharp knife. Sanders and Mackey’s role was to drive homeless persons, for whom the defendants had obtained counterfeit driver’s licenses, to various banks to cash the checks. On January 26, 2009, the day before defendant Hicklin’s arrest, Counts picked up a man named Dustin Eddie and provided Eddie with an altered stolen check in the amount of $4,949.63. Sanders and Mackey took Eddie to a bank in Athens, Georgia, but left Eddie after they saw police officers there. Eddie cashed the stolen, altered check but was arrested at the bank. On January 27, 2009, defendant Hicklin, with Sanders and Mackey, were arrested while en route to Ocala, Florida to negotiate the stolen checks. Counts and a homeless man (who was to use the counterfeit driver’s licenses in Hicklin’s car to cash the checks) were following in another car, but were not stopped by police. Prior to the instant offense, both Hicklin and Counts were convicted in 2005 in federal court in Tampa, Florida for a similar scheme, in which they stole checks, altered them, and recruited homeless persons to cash them. Hicklin’s 30-month 3 imprisonment ended in October 2008. Hicklin was on supervised release at the time of his January 27, 2009 arrest for the instant offense.