Pubdate: Tue, 18 Jul 2000
Source: Fresno Bee, The (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Fresno Bee
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Author: Jerry Bier, The Fresno Bee

EX-CHP OFFICER TO PLEAD GUILTY IN MONEY LAUNDERING

Michael Wilcox Also Has Agreed To Have His Case Moved To Los Angeles.

A former California Highway Patrol officer from Fresno whose cooperation 
helped crack a major Southern California drug case will plead guilty to 
charges that he attempted to hide money that authorities said he made as a 
result of drug deals.

In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno, Michael Wilcox, 40, 
agreed to plead guilty and have his money-laundering case transferred to 
Los Angeles.

Wilcox, who also has been charged in the drug case, has been cooperating 
with authorities.

His plea agreement in the Fresno case says he also has agreed to plead 
guilty to drug charges in Los Angeles, but that he will not be charged with 
drug trafficking or conspiracy.

The prosecutors also have agreed to recommend that whatever sentence Wilcox 
receives for both the drug and money-laundering counts will be served 
concurrently.

Wilcox, who resigned from the Highway Patrol, originally was charged in 
federal court in Fresno with 13 counts of "structuring financial 
transactions" in an effort to hide an unexplained accumulation of wealth.

He agreed to plead guilty to one of those counts.

Wilcox, who is free on his own recognizance, is cooperating in the Southern 
California drug case against former state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement 
agent Richard Wayne Parker and others. Parker already has been sentenced to 
life in prison and fined $16 million in a drug case in which nearly 650 
pounds of cocaine was stolen July 4, 1997, from a BNE evidence locker in 
Riverside.

Officers said they cracked the case with the cooperation of Wilcox, who 
allegedly told investigators he and his former Highway Patrol partner, 
George Ruelas, committed the burglary with Parker's direction.

Ruelas, who was arrested in Fresno while Wilcox cooperated with 
authorities, and Wilcox reportedly burglarized the evidence locker using a 
key and a code provided by Parker.

According to investigators, Wilcox aroused suspicion when he began making a 
series of bank deposits throughout Fresno, Merced and Kings counties.

The frequent deposits, made between February and October 1998, ranged from 
$1,800 to $4,400.

Deposits of less than $10,000 usually are not reported to federal authorities.
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