Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I'm back with Raymond Hicks, highly decorated deputy with the
Speaker 2: Broward County Sheriff's Department, framed by his crooked colleagues for
Speaker 2: a dope dealing and went to prison for about sixteen
Speaker 2: and a half months while he was awaiting his day
Speaker 2: in court. And we'll get to all of that. His
Speaker 2: book is I'm Still Standing, and he's got a website.
Speaker 2: We've hooked up to it at Coast tocoastam dot com.
Speaker 2: So just go to tonight's show and click on Raymond's
Speaker 2: name and it'll take you right there and you can
Speaker 2: order the book there as well. It's a remarkable story.
Speaker 2: So before the break, Raymond, we were talking about the
Speaker 2: actual bust where you're at home, minding your own business
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, this swat team, some sixty
Speaker 2: cops with their guns drawn, burst into the house. They're
Speaker 2: pointing guns at you and your small children, and I mean,
Speaker 2: you know these guys, right, and they're pretending like like, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, you're you're some criminal and you and they
Speaker 2: won't tell you what they what. They're arresting you for.
Speaker 3: That is correct, mister Richard. They never told me what
Speaker 3: they was arrested me for, and it's a and it's
Speaker 3: a good thing that they didn't tell me because they
Speaker 3: probably would have killed me that day, because you know,
Speaker 3: I ain't never been in trouble in my entire life,
Speaker 3: and I endeavored it. Never tried drugs in my entire life,
Speaker 3: never tried a marijuana cigarette or a joint, which is
Speaker 3: what they referred to as the marijuana cigarette. I never
Speaker 3: took a drink a day in my life, and it's
Speaker 3: just amazing to me how all this stuff unfold. So
Speaker 3: of course Dave Robshaw said, we're gonna play Shawing suspension,
Speaker 3: pining the outcome of this case. I said, what case?
Speaker 3: And they still wouldn't discuss anything with me. So of
Speaker 3: course this black gentman named Bernard Brown took me and
Speaker 3: put me in the cruiser and transported me over to
Speaker 3: Dishrect five. When I ride at District five, I'm still
Speaker 3: asking questions, you know, what did I do? Why am
Speaker 3: I here? Well, I, well, we can't discuss it, and
Speaker 3: of course they booked me in there. They later took
Speaker 3: me over to the city jail. So when I rived
Speaker 3: to the city jail, from the county, from the district,
Speaker 3: from the county. I'm still asking questions about why the
Speaker 3: booking me in. I'm like, you know, what are you
Speaker 3: guys booking me for? What did I do? So they
Speaker 3: placed me in solitary confinement and I was there for
Speaker 3: twenty four hours. Max.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, you're in solitary confinement twenty four hours?
Speaker 2: Have they have they given you your phone call? Have
Speaker 2: they read you your Miranda rights?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, no, they never read me my brand.
Speaker 3: They never mirandazed me when they came to my house
Speaker 3: and when I got there as they was looking me in,
Speaker 3: they never gave me no phone call. And they put
Speaker 3: me in solitary confinements for almost twenty four hours. And
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the next morning the marshal shows up
Speaker 3: and I said, whoa, the marshals, what are you guys
Speaker 3: here for? We're here to take you to court. I
Speaker 3: said for what what did I do? Well, you know,
Speaker 3: we can't discuss. So they handcuffed me and shackled me
Speaker 3: and transported me. They put me in an unmarked cruiser
Speaker 3: and they transported me over to the federal courthouse. And
Speaker 3: when I got there, my wife and my mom was
Speaker 3: in the courtroom sitting there waiting, you know, as I'm
Speaker 3: being rained, and the prosecutor the DA she said, well,
Speaker 3: mister Hickson, is that work. He's in the top ten
Speaker 3: percent of his department. But when he's not at work,
Speaker 3: he's into the other correctly activity. So I'm looking at
Speaker 3: my mother and my wife's not like, what is this
Speaker 3: woman talking about? And that's when she proffered to the courts.
Speaker 3: She said, I went to the I went to Barra
Speaker 3: States to live in three hundred and fifty kilograms of cocaine.
Speaker 3: That was according to seven hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3: So the judge said, well, mister Hicks, you know you're
Speaker 3: not a flight risk because I didn't have a passport
Speaker 3: at the time. But she said, I'm I'm a minister society.
Speaker 2: She called you a menace to society, highly graded officer,
Speaker 2: You're a menaceter society.
Speaker 3: I'm a minister society. So you know, I literally busted
Speaker 3: in the court and my mom she was trying to
Speaker 3: get me to come down and come down, and I said, mom,
Speaker 3: did you So she slammed the gap and said, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you no bun home and you'll
Speaker 3: and you'll stay at the Federal the Center Center, Miami.
Speaker 3: So the Marsians came in. They escorted me back down
Speaker 3: to the court and when I get to the holdness there,
Speaker 3: there's about five other guys that was arrested along with
Speaker 3: me that I found out later. And all these guys
Speaker 3: we all used to work out together at the gym.
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking that they said something that caused me
Speaker 3: to be there, mister Richard, I'm I'm on the head
Speaker 3: about it, you know.
Speaker 2: So what they they accused you. The charge was that
Speaker 2: you had across state lines, you had sold three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty kilos of cocaine with a street value of
Speaker 2: did you say seventy five million?
Speaker 3: No, seven hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 2: Seven and fifty million. Now when when they did?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: At that very moment, I'm being I'm being like, this
Speaker 2: is no mistake. I'm being set up by my crooked colleagues.
Speaker 3: But I thought, I thought the guys that was arrested
Speaker 3: with me said something that, you know, that caused me
Speaker 3: to be there, and I'm getting ready to fight with
Speaker 3: all of them. And they was like no, man, big
Speaker 3: kicks you wrong. Man? You ready, you're ready to fight
Speaker 3: with us? Man, We haven't did nothing this this is
Speaker 3: your department. And I come to find out later that
Speaker 3: what they were saying was true. So what happened? If
Speaker 3: I back up for one second, mister Richard in Tonto,
Speaker 3: faars has a fiduciary duty, sir, and you can act
Speaker 3: anyone that's in law enforcement. They have to call you
Speaker 3: in and give you a gavage statement to determine whether
Speaker 3: or not you committed any crimes. So they swear you in.
Speaker 3: It's audio, it's an audio and video recording. And at
Speaker 3: no time did the Briar Sheriff Office in Toronto Pairs
Speaker 3: They ever called me in and asked me anything related
Speaker 3: to me going to all these varied states. And you're
Speaker 3: going to learn later that I didn't go to these
Speaker 3: battered states. I'm at work, sir, So of course there
Speaker 3: I am locked up at the Federal Detention Center in Miami,
Speaker 3: faced for natural life imprisonment.
Speaker 2: You're facing natural life imprisonment. What you get a public
Speaker 2: you get a court appointed attorney and he wants you
Speaker 2: to he wants you to plea right.
Speaker 3: Yes, So they give me one attorney. You know, for
Speaker 3: the point of the attorney, He said, ray you know
Speaker 3: this is affairs. He says, got a ninety eight point
Speaker 3: eight percent convictorate. I told him, I said, God got
Speaker 3: a convictorate of zero percent. And I told him, I said, Man,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to admit to something that I did
Speaker 3: not do. And I told him, I said, well, where's
Speaker 3: the evidence. Well, I don't know, Ray. I said, well,
Speaker 3: then you need to go check and get back with me. Man.
Speaker 2: So, of course, if you had compt the plea, excuse me, Raymond,
Speaker 2: if you had, if you had accepted the plea deal,
Speaker 2: what would the sentence have been.
Speaker 3: If I accepted. Well, they came to me and offered
Speaker 3: me a plea, and I told him, I said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not. That was after being a concentrate for almost
Speaker 3: eleven eleven eleven and a half months, mister Richard. But
Speaker 3: but me taking the plea would admit that I was
Speaker 3: guilty of what they accused me of, and my life
Speaker 3: would have been ruined.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: And I told him, I said, no, I'm like, I'd
Speaker 3: rather take life imprisonment. I'm not going to go in
Speaker 3: there and admit the something that I didn't do. My
Speaker 3: mother told him. She said, I put my head up
Speaker 3: on a chopping block, and you can take my head
Speaker 3: off if you can show me that that young man
Speaker 3: committed these crimes. He ain't never did, he ain't never
Speaker 3: been in trouble before. And of course they could have
Speaker 3: told the court point attorney. He decided that he was
Speaker 3: going to get off the case. He says, ray on
Speaker 3: the manuscript, write down everything that happened to you, because
Speaker 3: this could possibly be a best seller book, may do
Speaker 3: a movie. And he told the judge, you said you, honor,
Speaker 3: I don't want nothing else to do with this case.
Speaker 3: Then they gave me another quarter point of the attorney.
Speaker 3: He tried to force me to take time on the
Speaker 3: comhersion rage. This is the fairs. I told him, I
Speaker 3: say the same thing I told the previous quarter point
Speaker 3: of attorney. I'm gonna tell you the same thing. I'm
Speaker 3: not taking anything man. And there was time that I
Speaker 3: really wanted to come across that table at tear his
Speaker 3: head off his body, mister Richard, because he was trying
Speaker 3: to force me to take time, you know, for something
Speaker 3: that I didn't do. And what people don't realize, there's
Speaker 3: so many people that are forced a plea bargain to
Speaker 3: avoid fatally increase me hearted sentence because they cannot afford
Speaker 3: these high powered lawyers, and they take a plea because
Speaker 3: especially when you at the fans, sir, this fairs got
Speaker 3: a ninety eight point eight percent conviction rate. That means
Speaker 3: that it's only two percent of one point five percent
Speaker 3: of the individuess that's locked up. It's probably gonna see
Speaker 3: the streets man.
Speaker 2: So we don't have a much time here. So eventually,
Speaker 2: though you got rid of this, you fixed his wagon
Speaker 2: as well. You got rid of this court appointed attorney
Speaker 2: and your I guess your wife had some savings and
Speaker 2: she managed to hire you finally, a competent, accomplished defense lawyer.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, my wife went through her first savings and
Speaker 3: she got a former prosecutor, you know, and who had
Speaker 3: never lost a case in fifteen years. And when he
Speaker 3: came to visit me, he said, if I've never seen
Speaker 3: an innocent man, you one of them, and you shouldn't
Speaker 3: be here. But I must mention to you, mister Richard,
Speaker 3: but I was there, incncrated man. They put me in
Speaker 3: a hole for five months, total darkness, twenty three hours
Speaker 3: a day in solitary confinement, and then they later placed
Speaker 3: me down in general population, which is a death threat
Speaker 3: to an officer.
Speaker 2: And I put you in general population hoping that somebody
Speaker 2: would take a run at you.
Speaker 3: Exactly. You can't take a cop and put him in GP.
Speaker 3: You can't put him in general population. That's a death threat,
Speaker 3: you know. And I literally tried to beat this one
Speaker 3: black guy to death. Man, he saw my pitcher parade
Speaker 3: over the Newscapta and say he hated Ethan cops. And
Speaker 3: one of my one of the guys that knew me
Speaker 3: from the hood, he said, man, you know what that is.
Speaker 3: That's Dick Hicks. Man. You're tripping man. He gonna thump man.
Speaker 3: He come from where we come from. And I literally
Speaker 3: tried to kill him, mister Richard, I tried to put
Speaker 3: my fist through his brains.
Speaker 2: Man, you saved another prisoner's life while you were in prison.
Speaker 2: You saved another prisoner's life while you were in prison.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct. So what happened was there was a
Speaker 3: black gentleman who who was shot in his head. Many
Speaker 3: years proud of him being arrested, but and you know,
Speaker 3: serving time with me and of course, I'm in my
Speaker 3: room and I heard somebody say, dig homean dig homie,
Speaker 3: come come, and I ran outside, you know, ran out
Speaker 3: in the reckyard. And when I ran out there, they're
Speaker 3: this black dude is he had really bad seizure where
Speaker 3: he had done swallow his tongue. And the officer, who
Speaker 3: was actually man in the unit, he had walked out
Speaker 3: to go use the bathroom, and he let he left
Speaker 3: the unit unattended. And there I was, you know, taking
Speaker 3: my thing of going into his throat, pulling his tongue,
Speaker 3: you know, turning him on the side, pulling his song
Speaker 3: up from you know, from from that that lawns in
Speaker 3: the back of his throat to keep him from choking.
Speaker 3: And next thing, you know, medical staff he the officer
Speaker 3: came running. The medical staff came in and they took
Speaker 3: the gentleman out man, and they gave me a life,
Speaker 3: saving a war while I was an inmate the water
Speaker 3: of the institution. Don't take my word. When you go
Speaker 3: to my book title, I'm still standing, you'll you'll see,
Speaker 3: you'll see the right up it they gave me that
Speaker 3: I put put as appendix in the back of the book.
Speaker 2: So the the corrupt cops, the dirty cops with the
Speaker 2: Broward County Sheriff's Department that framed you. Was it their
Speaker 2: intention to have you killed in prison? They didn't want
Speaker 2: this to go to trial. Is that your understanding?
Speaker 3: Oh? They really they wanted missus Richard. You can't take
Speaker 3: a cop and put him in general population. I was
Speaker 3: there with eight guys that I was over when I
Speaker 3: worked in the jail, or I arrested when I was
Speaker 3: working out on the street. Eight of them. Can't. You
Speaker 3: can't take a cop and put him in GP. That's
Speaker 3: a death threat, that's a.
Speaker 2: But you survived, and you got your day in court eventually,
Speaker 2: after what sixteen and a half months.
Speaker 3: After sixteen and a half months, I took my case
Speaker 3: to trial in federal court and they chose eleven whites,
Speaker 3: one black and one black out to They all business people,
Speaker 3: and they found out through testimony. The chief just said,
Speaker 3: what are drugs? No drugs? What of money? No money?
Speaker 3: So he said, so he slammed the gabble and called
Speaker 3: for sidebar. He said, for impeacement purposes, you better come
Speaker 3: back in here with the same information that brought this
Speaker 3: young man in here. So why did you hear it?
Speaker 3: So then they lied and said said I gave confidence
Speaker 3: so law enforcement information f c I n c I S.
Speaker 3: So my attorney, subpeating the communication operator, she came and testified.
Speaker 3: She said, miss I worked in this capacity to twenty
Speaker 3: five years. Mister Hicks has not ran this information. And
Speaker 3: the way that you run f c I S is
Speaker 3: through your SoC security number, mister Richard, And she said
Speaker 3: Hicks wasn't running this information. Then they lied and said
Speaker 3: I was on the audio team when they played the
Speaker 3: tape for the Jerman the judge. You don't have to
Speaker 3: take my word. Go to Google and type and missing
Speaker 3: documents turned up in deputy lawsuit and you can read
Speaker 3: it word for verbatim. And they found out that it
Speaker 3: wasn't my voice on the tape, but in fact it
Speaker 3: was the same deputy who arrested me. All those individuals
Speaker 3: that was involved in my arrest were promoted to a
Speaker 3: higher rank. Some of them still work at the brow
Speaker 3: Sheriff Office to this day.
Speaker 2: Except okay, so right now, I just want to back
Speaker 2: up though for a second, and we're going to take
Speaker 2: a break here in a in a few moments. But
Speaker 2: for the first time, you discover the entire basis of
Speaker 2: the case is based on the say so or the
Speaker 2: hearsay rather of one individual who, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: is a career criminal and a police informant. Tell me about.
Speaker 3: Him, you're talking you referred to and sell Pratt. Sol
Speaker 3: Pratt was arrested January first of two thousand and he
Speaker 3: was arrested for accravated salt with the firearm where he
Speaker 3: chased the j gentimate down the street, mister Eddie Fraser,
Speaker 3: because mister Fraser went to his house to collect money
Speaker 3: that he had dumped his trash, and of course Pratt
Speaker 3: chased this man down the street with a gun and
Speaker 3: he was arrested by the bron Sheaff office. But that's
Speaker 3: the same individual that the bron Shaff office tried to
Speaker 3: use and allow me so when they didn't have any
Speaker 3: drugs or money, they tried to use him as an
Speaker 3: informant on me to say that I committed. He was
Speaker 3: the one who actually lied and said all these things
Speaker 3: about what I'm just what I'm actually explaining to you now.
Speaker 3: He also said that on December twenty fourth and nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine, that him and his wife was at a
Speaker 3: red light and I motion I saw the two of
Speaker 3: them and I motioned with my finger that I was
Speaker 3: gonna shoot them. Well, my attorney subpoena his wife, who
Speaker 3: worked for the Postal service, and she came in she testified.
Speaker 3: My attorney said, have you ever seen this my client
Speaker 3: sit next to me. She said no, I've never seen
Speaker 3: this man a day in my life. He said, I
Speaker 3: want you to take a good look at him, and
Speaker 3: she looked at me a second time and she said, no,
Speaker 3: I've never seen him. So my attorney said, well, your
Speaker 3: husband just testified to the jury and the judge that
Speaker 3: on December twenty fourth to nineteen ninety nine, mister Hicks
Speaker 3: saw the two of you at a red light and
Speaker 3: he motioned that he was gonna shoot you. She said,
Speaker 3: my husband tell him a lie because him and I
Speaker 3: we were not even together. And she said, and furthermore,
Speaker 3: he's a compulsive.
Speaker 2: Liar I ever met Did you ever hear of ensel
Speaker 2: Prout or meet ensel Pratt prior to this? No, sir,
Speaker 2: So it's just some random career criminal that they pull
Speaker 2: off the street. And what did they do pay him
Speaker 2: to testify?
Speaker 3: That's correct. They gave him fifteen thousand, and they gave
Speaker 3: him twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: To lie to lie, and that's their case.
Speaker 3: That's their case. That's their case. That's their case.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like they it sounds like they weren't
Speaker 2: expecting it. It sounds like they weren't expecting it to
Speaker 2: go to trial. They were hoping that you were going
Speaker 2: to get murdered in prison and it never would have
Speaker 2: had to go to trial.
Speaker 3: They were hoping that either I get either either I
Speaker 3: get hurt while I was there concerrated, or take a plea.
Speaker 3: That's what they was making on mister Richard. They thought
Speaker 3: I was going to take a plea. So when I
Speaker 3: decided to go to trial, you know, because when I
Speaker 3: received my discovery, this this is what I learned, all
Speaker 3: this stuff about what I'm explaining to you now.
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