Man Arrested for Dealing Crack Claims to be Texas Ranger

A simple traffic stop led to some serious charges for one Kent area resident.

Kent Police pulled over Todd T. Ekmark, with listed addresses in Kent and Brimfield, this month and found more than 5 grams of crack cocaine in his car.

Kent Police Lt. Paul Canfield said Ekmark consented to a search of his car after he was pulled over near the intersection of Silver Meadows Boulevard and Spaulding Drive just after midnight on Feb. 22.

Officers found the crack cocaine and Ekmark then confessed to police he planned to sell it, Canfield said. The amount found in Ekmark's car could be split up into more than 25 doses to be sold on the street.

"That was a number of doses there," Canfield said.

Aside from the confession, Ekmark also told police he is an "independent Texas Ranger," according to his arrest report.

An official at the Texas Ranger law enforcement division said there is no record of a Todd Ekmark in the department.

"We do not have 'independent rangers,' the official said in an email.

And there's no listing under the baseball team's roster, past or present, for a Todd Ekmark.

He was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Portage County court Friday on a charge of trafficking in cocaine, a fourth-degree felony.