Derick Chandler

Clarification: In an earlier version of the story, Sumner County Attorney Larry Marczynski said the complaint will be available on Wednesday. The complaint will be available after Derick Chandler’s first Sumner County court appearance on Thursday morning starting at 9 a.m.

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by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — After two years of being at-large in Europe, a former Sedgwick County Sheriff Deputy accused of sexual misconduct with an underage female, has been caught and is currently being extradited to Sumner County.

Derick Chandler, 30, of Wellington is being transported from Budapest, Hungary and is expected to arrive at the MCI Airport in Kansas City tonight (Tuesday) at 10 p.m. Sumner County deputies will then escort him to Wellington where he is expected to face five charges surrounding sexual misconduct. The official complaint detailing those charges has not been publicly released, but Sumner County Attorney Larry Marczynski expects to do so by Wednesday after Chandler is in Sumner County custody.

Marczynski said Chandler was taken into custody in Budapest, Hungary perhaps 45 days ago, and has been in jail there ever since. Once the necessary paperwork was filed through the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, the extradition process began.

Marczynski said he does not know the details on how Chandler was detained.

Chandler is facing charges from a Wellington Police Department August 2019 investigation. Before he was about to get arrested, Chandler escaped authorities. He allegedly fled Wellington in his 2015 Dodge Charger and drove to Dallas. He then allegedly boarded a plane at Dallas/Fort Worth Municipal Airport and flew to Houston and then to Istanbul, Turkey.

Then Sumner County Attorney Kerwin Spencer would eventually press charges eight months later.

According to the Turkey International Extradition Treaty with the United States, the two countries are to provide for mutual assistance in criminal matters. However, Chandler was not charged at the time, so the Turkey government had no obligation to turn him over if he was found. Since then he was believed to have left Turkey and entered Hungary. 

Chandler was once a member of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office and was considered an exemplary employee. He graduated at the top of his class and had no complaints filed against him, according to Jeff Easter, Sedgwick County Sheriff in August 2019.

A background check showed Chandler did face charges after a bruise was found on his stepson in 2013 in Sumner County. But Spencer wrote in an email to KAKE-TV that “subsequent investigation revealed alternative explanations for the bruise on the child’s buttocks so that charge was dismissed in November 2013.”