A 19-year-old Leesburg man was jailed recently after stolen handguns were found inside a vehicle during a traffic stop.
Leesburg Police officers were conducting surveillance at apartments in the area of 900 Lucas Street on Jan. 8 after when they saw a white Buick pull into the parking lot. Four people got out of the vehicle and one went inside an apartment and came back holding a white box. Two women and a man later identified as Akiem J. Nickerson then left the apartment complex and headed north on Lucas Street toward South Street, a Leesburg Police report states.
Officers stopped the vehicle, which had an expired license tag, a short time later after the driver ran a stop sign and the front seat passenger was seen without her seat belt. Senior Officer Gary Herrero’s K-9 partner, Banner, performed a free-air sniff on the vehicle and the dog alerted, indicating the likely presence of narcotics. Officers then searched the vehicle and found four firearms – two of which had been reported stolen in Lake County – inside the white box that was sitting next to Nickerson in the back seat, the report says.
The weapons were identified as:
- A stolen black Remington 9mm handgun with one round in the chamber and a magazine containing four rounds;
- A stolen black-and-silver Walther 9mm handgun with one round in the chamber and a magazine containing five rounds;
- A black Ruger .380-caliber handgun with one magazine containing five rounds; and
- A pink-and-black Diamondback .380-caliber handgun with one magazine containing five rounds.
After Nickerson was detained, he told officers that he didn’t know who he had spoken with at the apartment before leaving with the box of guns. He also told officers he had “weed” in his pocket but refused to provide further information about the guns, the report says.
Nickerson was placed under arrest and transported to the Leesburg Police Department for booking procedures. He was then transferred to the Lake County Jail on charges of two counts of theft of a firearm and possession of marijuana not more than 20 grams. He was released the following afternoon on $11,000 bond and is due in court Feb. 1 at 8:30 a.m. to answer to the charges, jail records show.
