Hansen’s report is a sobering exposé on how systemic judicial leniency weaponizes community trust against the most vulnerable. It effectively highlights the terrifying reality that institutional failure is often a predator's greatest ally.
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He Helped Arrest Santa. Then It Got Even Weirder
Added:I have gotten pretty darn good at the predatory predictive market. I'm not talking about Wall Street. I'm not talking about sporting events like the World Cup. I'm talking about the men we catch in our stings.
what's going to happen to them based upon the circumstances, whether they're going to plead guilty, whether they're going to try to go to trial, what their sentences are going to be based upon the different jurisdictions in which we work, whether or not they'll be repeat offenders. But something happened recently in Florida, P County, Florida, where, as you know, we work frequently with the sheriff there, Grady Jud, my 40 plus year friend, that I could never have predicted, and I don't think anybody could have predicted it. You recall, and you've seen this episode on my streaming network, True Blue, in the most recent investigation in P County, our sting, in April of 2026, we busted a 68-year-old man named Thomas Hicks. Now, Hicks was the local Santa Claus. When he first popped up in the chat, I remarked, "Boy, that guy looks like Santa Claus." One of the detectives turns and says, "That's the Santa Claus I hired to have in my own home. My children have sat on his lap.
It turns out he had his picture taken with the sheriff of P County, Grady Jud, just a few weeks before the sting at a Rotary Club meeting. So Hicks is negotiating to get a 13-year-old girl to have sex with.
He's negotiating with the girl's father.
13 about to be 14-year-old girl.
Horrible conversation. There's a phone call and they bust him. And we'll talk about the details in just a minute.
Well, it turns out just within the last month, Hicks's brother, 62-year-old David Hicks, gets busted in a Walmart for exposing himself and pleasuring himself in front of a woman and her five-year-old daughter. You can't believe this. Joining me now, Sheriff Grady Jud of P County. Thank you for joining me, my friend.
>> Hey, Chris. It's good to see you again.
together we're doing a lot of good work across this nation and >> I appreciate the partnership and the friendship.
>> So, we're going to get into the Thomas Hicks case again in a minute. You and I have discussed this and as you know we we covered it extensively.
How did you figure out that this guy in the Walmart, David Hicks, was the brother of Thomas Hicks? Take me inside that particular case.
Well, let me back up a step.
>> Sure.
>> Whenever this arrest occurred, my crime or my PIO's, in fact, my administrator came in and said, "Here's the piece of information you need and the card for David Hicks."
Oh. Oh, by the way, uh this is crazy on its own, but his brother is Thomas Hicks, Santa Claus.
>> How do you read to that? I said, "Carrie, don't mess with me. I'm I'm busy today. Don't don't mess with me."
She said, "I am not messing with you."
She said, "This is like for real." So, we discovered at the scene, he went into a Walmart and exposed himself in front of this 5-year-old little girl. Now, mom was looking into the cooler. I think she was looking at specifically eggs in the cooler. She didn't see it, but a Walmart employee, a young man, saw it. And so about that time, he exposes himself.
Then he holds some straws, a box of straws over his genitals, and he walks down the aisle and then begins to masturbate.
>> And we see this on the Walmart. We see this on the video from the Walmart.
>> Yes. In the middle of the day. So, of course, he calls his boss, his boss calls us. The guys fled the store by then.
But our detectives, who are the very best, were able to track him down. And we did that with the help of the community. Chris, that's what's so magic about social media, about cameras inside of the stores. Walmart totally cooperated. They said, "Hey, we're we're not having that deviant conduct here."
And someone called us up and said, "Let me tell you where this guy lives."
>> The detectives knock on the door and what happens?
>> Knocks on the door. He opens the door and he says, "I know why you're here. I want a lawyer." Now, that's an admission if I've ever heard that. So, we take him into custody. They call us and let me read from the card. I mean, here he is being in handcuffs, but I've got some notes on the back. 1991, he's arrested in South Carolina for indecent exposure and receives a fine.
1992 in Takcoa, Georgia, he's arrested for indecent exposure. There's no disposition on that case. 1996 in Escambia County, Florida. That's way out in the panhandle. He's arrested and gets three months in the county jail for indecent exposure.
1998 he's back in TCOA, Georgia where he is charged with indecent exposure and that case is nullst but he also has two other charges that he apparently pleads to child molestation >> and all he gets is five years probation and then he disappears until the other day. This guy is a serial child sex predator. Period.
And so is his brother Santa Claus. And we're shocked. I just hope he doesn't have a third brother. You know what I'm saying? Or a second brother.
>> Yeah. Any more brothers in that family.
So, Sheriff, it begs the question, you know, clearly the criminal justice system failed us when it came to David Hicks. I mean, the guy should have been punished more seriously because he kept offending and offending and offending.
And it begs the question, what was he doing during the five years he was off the radar? And how many potential other victims could be out there? And what do you say to a national or international audience here about David Hicks and the potential of him having committed other crimes?
>> Well, Chris, you're spot on now. You are not even aware of this except that you know how this goes. We already have another case. another case >> once another case on him once they they the community saw all of this publicity.
We've discovered at least one more case that may have occurred that same day in that same store.
And we know there were other victims out there. He didn't go from 1998 to 2026 without exposing himself someplace somewhere. But how many parents just grabbed their kids and left the park or left the store and didn't report it to us? We have to know. We have to know when these folks do this because they're very dangerous and they're only one step or one blink of the eye or one breath away from sexual battery of a ch child.
and has he done that in the past and no one's reported it to us or the children didn't tell mom or they were too embarrassed the parents were embarrassed that's what we found with Thomas his brother was such a popular and such a really game on Santa Claus that a lot of people hired him to be the Santa Claus they didn't know he had a reputable job at a mental health in in communications, by the way, at at a mental health facility.
So, at the end of the day, these folks live a double life. They may be like the neighbor next door until they're not.
>> I want to dive deeper into Thomas Hicks in a minute, but first, back to David, who you arrested after the incident in the Walmart. I mean, he was charged at one point in a different state with the actual molestation of a child.
>> Yes.
>> Do we know anything about that case? And and if he was charged there with that, given all the other exposure cases, what are the odds that he's actually gone handson and abused a child physically?
Well, I don't have the investigative reports from Georgia in front of me, but he was charged with two counts of lewd conduct and give and he plead guilty or he pled to that and got five years of probation. Now, let me shock you a little bit. They withheld adjudication in TCOA, Georgia.
They withheld adjudication. So, he was arrested for indecent exposure and they dropped that charge. That was probably part of a plea deal because he pled to two counts of child molestation.
All he got was 5 years probation and they withheld adjudication. They didn't even adjudicate him a felon. This is messed up. This is messed up. Did they not go look backwards? Did they not see what his history was? How in the world did a prosecutor in Takcoa, Georgia think that was all right? I don't >> So he wasn't even a registered sex offender when you arrested him in Pole County, Florida.
>> No, he wasn't.
>> Should he have been?
>> No, he wasn't.
Based on today's laws and standards, he would have been.
>> Right.
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>> So what happens to David now? What is he facing in P County, Florida?
>> Well, he's facing indecent exposure and he's facing lewd conduct in the presence of a child. So we have him face facing felony charges.
our goal here and we're working with the state attorney's office, Brian Hos, who is really a gameon prosecutor. He is the elected prosecutor. We're working with his team and our goal is to send him to state prison for as long as we can. So I our goal is not to let him up from this.
This is sick conduct. This is dangerous conduct. And quite frankly, I'm surprised that at some place somewhere in this county, they didn't see him do that and some daddy mopped the floor up in Walmart with him.
>> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And what do we know about David Hicks? What did he do for a living? Does he have kids?
>> You know, he's retired and I'm I'm not sure if he has any children or not. His wife obviously is standing by him because she was there at the house when he was arrested and you know I I don't understand that either. But that's that's not my world. That's her world.
But she if she's protecting him, she's enabling him. So even though she can't be criminally charged at this point in the investigation, she has an active an active part in his conduct because she either needs to stay with him every second of the day. She needs to leave him. She needs to be accountable and responsible and say he's doing this in front of children and I'm living in the house with this guy.
Well, I'll take this a step further, Chris. I had a gentleman stop me at Rotary just this week with tears in his eyes and said, "I'm scared to death. My granddaughters live directly directly around him. They border one side of his house." And my daughter said, "We always thought it was strange that he would look at us and look at the little girls, but he was never friendly.
He would never acknowledge, "Hi, how are you?" across the fence, but he would stare at us. Unfortunately, staring alone is not against the law, and we have no evidence that they saw anything else, but we're checking into that as well.
Well, Sheriff, you know how these things go. The peeping tom becomes the guy who exposes himself. The guy who exposes himself becomes the the uh rapist or the child predator. I mean, these guys don't stop with one thing. It's like viewing CESAM or child pornography. Ultimately, experts in this field tell us and you know this better than anyone that activity will build and build and build and then the fantasy grows to the point that the only thing that will fulfill it is the actual exploitation of a child.
So if the guy hadn't been hands-on in Pole County during his residency there, it certainly seems that he was heading in that direction.
>> Yes. And and let me for for those that are watching and thinking, well, you know, this is in some derelch part of the community. No, it's not. He lived in an upper middle class neighborhood with upper middle class folks.
And he was he was not someone who is a who is as we would categorize him. Well, he's a he's just scourge of the earth and he just lives in a bad area and he's taking advantage of of children that are in need of attention.
We see that also, but that's not what happened here at all. He didn't have have the word t predator tattooed across his forehead.
>> Absolutely not. And he and he he did not have what the the community might think.
He might they might think, well, he's a criminal. He looks like a criminal. He acts like a criminal. Oh, no. This guy looked like a little old granddad, you know, and he was dressed appropriately to go to the store and shop. It's summertime. He was in appropriate shorts and a and a nice nice pullover shirt and then he pulls his junk out.
>> You know what I'm saying?
>> He's lucky he didn't get his ass whooped.
>> He's lucky he didn't.
>> I mean, you know, Florida is a state where you can carry a concealed weapon.
Somebody see that >> and fly off the handle and shoot his ass.
>> Look, there's a lot of good old boys in Pulk County where right is right and wrong is wrong. and wrong is never right. Had the had had the right guy, especially from the Malberry area. I mean, that it's known as God's country and hardworking, God-fearing, labor, uh what what we call real men. If if a real man had have seen that, >> he should have jumped right off his body.
>> Oh, it it would have been problems.
There would have been problems. Now, >> we're not advocating vigilantism, obviously. Never. Never. But it just it just w it just would have happened.
>> Yeah. And what happened to these two brothers along the way that made them both predators allegedly?
>> Well, that that would be interesting to to reel that back in and see what was their home life like when they grew up.
Uh was this encouraged by their father or mother or aunt or uncle? You know what? I mean, how did how did they get to this point? How I mean, the first time they're on our radar, Santa Claus is 68 and the Walmart shopper is 62.
You know what I'm saying?
>> Yeah.
>> So, the I mean, this is not their first rodeo. They didn't wake up in their 60s and go, "Well, heck, let's go do something deviant with a child."
Well, that's >> and we know that from arrest.
>> Yeah, that's what I want to talk about with Thomas Hicks, Santa Claus. I mean, here's a guy during Operation Poke Around and Find Out. He's negotiating with who he thinks is the dad of a young teen girl talking about specific and graphic sexual acts he wanted to perform on the girl.
13-y old little girl, >> 13-year-old girl. And then the decoy posing as the 13-y old girl gets on the phone. We're recording. We're embedded with y'all. And and he speaks to the girl and says, "You know, I'm a bit older." I mean, it was chilling.
Sheriff, you heard it. I heard it. I watch it.
>> I'll be gentle. I'll be gentle.
>> Yeah. And then he rolls in in his red SUV because he's Santa Claus and he's got a Santa related vanity plate on it as I recall. And he's sitting on the park bench near the mall waiting to meet the dad and the 13-year-old girl when your folks take him down, drag him in, and he's talking to me in the interview setting like I'm asking him about getting his car washed.
Well, you know, I've got an attraction to to this sort of sex act on women.
I've met them online. And he blames his wife because they're not sexually active at home.
>> And and you know, David's wife is with him at home and Thomas's wife is with him at home. I mean, Thomas's wife is Mrs. Santa Claus.
>> Yeah. She had to put out an email to all their customers saying due to unforeseen circumstances, Santa won't be able to make it down from the North Pole this year. where we can recommend some other Santa Clauses you can hire for your your corporate events and your family events. I mean, how many kids do you think sat on his lap?
>> Thousands and thousands. Listen, he was the brand name Rena Santa Claus. He was wellresected.
He had a wellrespected job.
He was there. There is a Christmas parade in the city of Lakeland that is like the Christmas parade of all Christmas parades. It's the Macy's Thanksgiving parade equivalent to Christmas time in Central Florida. He was the Santa Claus there for at least the last decade.
And the two detectives on the operation showed me pictures on their cell phone of their children and them >> with him as Santa Claus. We had one of our NOS's >> whenever we made the arrest said I'd already booked him for a Christmas party >> or the children.
That's the reputation he had of being a standup solid Santa Claus.
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After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Have your detectives come up with any other cases on him since his arrest in April 2026.
>> I'm not aware of any more right now. I know it shook this community to the core because listen and and I'm going to give you the G-rated version of this. After he's at your party with all your little children, you know, he's going back home or getting in his car and going someplace and pleasuring himself.
>> Yeah.
>> Because what you didn't realize is he was engaged in enjoying a sexual rush with your children.
That's scary.
>> And let me preface this by saying, you know, like you, I have thousands of pictures taken with people who I don't know every year. Right.
>> Right.
>> I think they're all nice people. I think they're supporters of this podcast and my True Blue Streaming Network and Fox News and everything else we do, but I don't know all of them. You had your picture taken with this Santa Claus in the weeks prior to his arrest at a at a social event. Was it Rotary Club? Did you get any >> Oh, >> did your creepy >> Rotary Club?
>> Yeah.
>> No Rotary Club meeting. He looked like just one of the Rotarians.
>> Yeah.
>> Had you been there, you'd have been in the picture.
>> Absolutely. You know, >> absolutely.
>> Because, as you know, I I'm honored with my popularity. I take thousands of pictures a month with people. We don't run background checks. And if we'd run a background check on him, we wouldn't have seen >> nothing.
No.
>> What does this say? that a guy like that in that position of trust dealing with children every day can surface in an investigation like this.
Well, he needs to be held to a higher level of accountability because of the trust that and the environment for trust that he created in the community. So, the system needs to hold him to a higher level. But now Thomas's charges are incredibly serious.
He should be in prison for the rest of his life, >> right?
>> David's charges, he's got felony charges, depending on how long he lives from the age of 62. We can't hold him probably the rest of his life if he was to live into his early 80s, but we can put him in prison for a very long time. Then we can then understand and and have him set up as a child sex offender and he can't live where he lives anymore.
>> Right. So what would be an appropriate sentence for David for the the Walmart?
>> Do you know there we have we have third and seconddegree felonies. 15 years would be a good solid charge. 10 years would be a good solid charge. If he simply masturbated in public with no history, disregarding the history, that that's a misdemeanor.
>> But when you put the child there and the fact that he exposed himself and engaged in deviant conduct in the presence of the child, that that ups the criminal charges. and Thomas Hicks, Santa Claus, >> is facing very serious charges, traveling to sexually exploit a minor and and and others. Uh, >> as we say in Pole County, he he's had the lick. He's done.
>> Yeah. You think he goes away for the rest of his life?
>> That's our goal. He's 68 years old. He can easily pull a 25, 30ear sentence on that.
>> And what's his status right now? He's just working his way through the court system, preliminary hearings. Yeah, he's he's he's still in the county jail locked up.
>> He is still locked up.
>> He is absolutely >> no bond for him. No bond for Santa Claus.
>> No bond. He He's not going any place.
S Santa Claus is not at the North Pole, but he is on ice at the county jail.
>> How much does it upset you personally, not just as sheriff, but as a leader in that community? and I brag about you all the time, not just being a law and order guy who gives colorful news conferences, but somebody who's a who's a big thinker and and and tries to tackle larger societal problems in Pole County, which is a big county, the size of the state of Rhode Island, but but what upsets you most when you see somebody like Thomas Hicks arrested in one of your stings? or does it just say that these guys come from all walks of life and we're going to see prominent people every time we do one of these things? I think what upsets me the most, Chris, is to know that there are Thomas Hicks in every county, most every county in this nation. And a lot of police agencies don't proactively go after these folks if it doesn't make noise, if it doesn't come to their attention.
they just ignore it. I had someone once say, "Wow, I didn't realize you had so many sexual predators and offenders in Pulk County." And I said, "Well, the majority of the people we arrest are not from this county, but we don't care where they're offending. What child they're attacking is not acceptable. So, we proactively go after this kind of crime and it doesn't make any noise until it's too late.
So, if then I ask, if we quit arresting people that sell drugs in this county, does that mean there's no drugs being sold or does it mean we're not doing our job by arresting the drug dealers? So sometimes you're criticized for making arrest of drug dealers or child predators and thinking, "Oh, you got a problem." No, you don't have a problem because you're managing it and you're arresting them and you're putting them in jail. Where you've got the problem is if your community is not arresting child sex predators, child sex offenders, people selling and trafficking and drugs. cuz I'll promise you there's some there doing it.
>> Yeah. You know, one more thing on Thomas, Santa Claus, the the the creepiest thing to me when I was sitting there face to face with him. And I obviously like like your detectives, I don't tell him everything I know, you know, when I start these interviews, I want to hear what he has to say. And I said to him at some point about threequarters of the way through the interview, I said, "You know, I can't help but notice that there is a striking resemblance between you and Santa Claus." And he looks at me dead bang across the table and says, "I am Santa Claus."
I can't help it but think you look like Santa Claus.
I am.
>> He was Santa Claus in this community.
That's right. And it is chilling. And that's how he got next to children.
That's how he was able to touch them and have them on his lap.
That's how he was able to begin the the process of pleasuring himself was this interaction with children, dangerous people.
But Chris, we're making a difference.
We've taken thousands of people off the street across this country. And you know what?
It started quite frankly, and I'm going to brag on you. It started with you and it started with me and it started with a very few other sheriffs and police chiefs when we said back in the day, "Wait a minute, just because it's not making noise doesn't mean it's not happening."
>> Yeah. So what we did is we went undercover and we started finding these people before they got to our children instead of investigating it after our children were a hands-on victim and that's made a difference. It's made a safer world for our children.
>> Well, I appreciate that. And and here's the great news about Pulk County and I think Florida in general. At least we're seeing sentences there. I'm reminded of a case we did in one of our stings with you guys where a man was arrested in the sting.
Uh they found child pornography, a lot of cas on his phone. He was offered a 10-year plea deal. Plead guilty, go to prison for 10 years, you're done. He turned it down, was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and the judge gave him natural life in the Florida prison system. That to me is justice.
>> Well, that tells me we need to take them all to trial.
>> Yeah.
>> Because when in this county, when you go to trial and a jury hears what you've done or tried to do to children, they're going to convict you, >> right? But we see a lot of probation cases and registration as a sex offender around the country. As you know, we do this in more than a dozen locations. And it's frustrating, I think, not just to me, but to the general public. And I hear from people who watch our network, our shows, our podcasts consistently about being upset about this probation thing. And I understand, you know, the law can only do so much on a first-time offender. I understand a prosecutor's office that's overwhelmed by murder cases, you know, but what I don't understand is a judge who treats these cases like it's a reality TV show and not a very serious proactive criminal investigation to take a bad human being off the street.
>> Well, I my my statement to those judges is why don't you move that child sex predator in next door to you and your children?
>> Put them in your basement. Yeah. Put them in your basement. Yeah. That's right.
>> Let them live next door to your child.
>> Yeah. Are people still moving to P County, Florida so they can be safe with you as sheriff?
>> Handover fist. We've had 150,000 people moved to our county in just the last 5 years. And our crimes at a 54year low.
So we're almost a million people in the county now. And over a million when you look at our tourist and visitors, over a million people. And it's a large county.
It's 2,000 square miles, larger than the state of Rhode Island. So, you can come here on vacation. You can be safe and have fun. You can move here and you can be safer than any time in the last 54 years. We put bad guys in jail. I love it because you can walk the streets.
your children can play out front in the yards and you don't have to worry because bad guys go to jail and good people thrive in this county.
>> Well, I appreciate you, sir. Thank you very much and I will see you very soon down there in Pulk County. Grady Jud, the sheriff of Pulk County, Florida, friend of mine for 40 plus years. Thank you, sir.
>> Take care, my friend. Talk to you soon.
>> We'll do. Thank you for having a seat with me and in this episode, Sheriff Grady Jud, P County, Florida. I'll see you back here next Wednesday with another episode of Have a Seat with Chris Hansen. Mondays, Predators I've Caught, drops every single Monday. And on Thursdays of each week, another episode of Takedown with Chris Hansen, our Predator Investigative series on my streaming network, True Blue. Watch true.com.
I'll see you on TV. Thanks for watching.
I'll be watching.
>> [music]
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