The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office filed cocaine possession charges on Wednesday against a member of a Detroit family that started the Little Caesars pizza chain and owns two sports franchises.
Michael Ilitch Jr., 38, of Bloomfield, Mich., the namesake son of the owner of the Detroit Tigers baseball and Red Wings hockey teams, was arrested on Dec. 28 outside the Boca Raton Resort and Hotel.
Boca Raton Police Officer Sharon Brock had watched him pull up in a taxicab to the 200 block of Northeast 15th Terrace, a neighborhood known for drug sales, then followed him to the hotel.
During the stop, Ilitch told her he was nervous and asked her why she had pulled him over. Brock said she had been watching him for 20 minutes.
Then Ilitch confessed, the officer said.
“He was told by his brother about the 15th Terrace area and stated that he had some crack cocaine in his left front shirt pocket he purchased for $40,” Brock wrote.
He also volunteered that he had marijuana in another shirt pocket and gave her the rolled marijuana cigarette, Brock said in her report.
Ilitch is scheduled to be arraigned on the charge on Friday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. He was freed on $1,000 bail after his arrest. Cocaine possession is a third-degree felony punishable by as long as five years in prison. Ilitch was not formally charged on the marijuana possession, a misdemeanor.
Ilitch is represented by West Palm Beach lawyer Joseph Atterbury, who to declined comment on the case.
The Detroit News reported that Ilitch’s arrest is the latest in a series of his problems in the last year that include a suspended driver’s license for traffic violations and his wife filing for divorce.
