Hecker Hits the Road - Again

Denny Hecker was a Twin Cities car dealer who lived too high, lied too much, and got over-extended. His various enterprises came crashing down around him during Great Recession. It was a perfect storm of self-imposed calamity, compounded by the bad economy.

The perfect storm included bankruptcy and criminal fraud charges, as well as a drunken driving arrest. To engage in a rather bad pun, the wheels fell off for the former auto magnate who once tried to buy the Minnesota Vikings.

And yet even as his businesses ran on fumes and finally expired, Hecker kept digging himself into a bigger hole. This self-sabotage included attempts by Hecker and his newest girlfriend / wife to mislead the bankruptcy court about the extent of Hecker’s assets.

Prison usually provides a reality check for people as self-indulgently willful as Denny Hecker. And that is indeed happening. This week the Star Tribune reported on the dose of “diesel therapy” Hecker is receiving, courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

The bureau is relocating Hecker to a different prison, this time in Pennsylvania. It’s the fourth time Hecker has been moved since he started serving his 10-year sentence in February.

Outside the walls, Hecker broke rules with impunity. The consequences come quicker, it seems, for rule violations inside, such as disregarding limits on phone calls.