A 29-year-old Wildwood man is being held on $19,000 bond after he was arrested for having a stolen handgun in a vehicle owned by a Villager.
A Lake County sheriff’s deputy spotted a vehicle in a known drug area at 3 a.m. Friday and ran a routine check of the license plate. The check revealed that the automobile was registered to a woman born in 1943 who lived in The Villages. Dispatch was able to contact the Villager who said she had left the vehicle at a postal station within The Villages.
The driver of the vehicle took off and the deputy gave chase. The man crashed the vehicle and then fled on foot with a deputy and K-9 unit in pursuit.
Eventually they apprehended Michael Ural Hicks. He was already wanted on Sumter County warrants charging him with possession and sale of cocaine. A firearm was found in The Villager’s vehicle and a check revealed the gun had been reported stolen in Lake County.
Hicks has been additionally charged with grand theft of a firearm possession of a weapon by a felon and fleeing/eluding police.
Further inquiry revealed the daughter of the Villager whose car had been stolen, had traded the use of the vehicle for drugs, according to the arrest report.
