‘I don’t know people who don’t like him’: Ex-boss startled by charges against Hendricks

Anwar Robertson’s first reaction Thursday when he saw the news image of his former part-time employee, Erick Hendricks, accused of terrorist activities, was, “Oh, bloody hell!”

Robertson recounted to The State newspaper Friday his surprise. “It’s a joke, right?” Robertson said he told his brother, who first notified him of the headlines Hendricks was making.

“I don’t know people who don’t like him,” said Robertson, the co-owner of Mr. PC, a three-store company in Columbia that repairs smartphones, computers and electronic gaming systems.

The FBI and federal prosecutors in Ohio portray Hendricks as nefarious. They charged him with being an ISIS sympathizer who tried to recruit people to the Islamic State, plotted a sleeper cell and wanted to build a training center in the U.S.

“It just doesn’t fit,” Robertson said of the man who worked for Mr. PC for a few months in 2010. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Physically imposing, Hendricks was affable and had good people skills, Robertson recalls. “His technical skills were not that good,” so Hendricks did not get a full-time position at Mr. PC’s first store on Bull Street, Robertson said.

The business owner said he hopes the feds arrested the wrong man or there’s a serious misunderstanding.

Much of the illegal activities Hendricks is accused of happened while he lived in Columbia. Nearly half of the instances listed in the 35-page federal complaint took place in May 2015, when he lived in the capital city area.

Local business license records and other records examined by the newspaper paint a picture of Hendricks as a person who moved frequently, started his own mobile phone repair business and painted a public image of himself through public social media that is starkly different from the man tracked by the FBI starting at least in the spring of last year.

Hendricks has a negligible criminal history. In 2013, he was charged in Richland County for nonsupport. He also had minor traffic offenses elsewhere.

Hendricks grew up in Woodson, Ark., near Little Rock and has moved around the nation, living most recently in Virginia and now Charlotte. His rental history indicates he also lived in Maryland.

His time in the Columbia area includes living in a working-class apartment complex called Lake Shore Village off Garners Ferry Road near Southeast Park from 2011 to 2014. A woman who on Thursday answered the door at the apartment where the Hendricks’ lived said she had received mail addressed to him. She had the mail returned to the sender.

In September of last year, the couple reapplied at Lake Shore. They were denied a lease. It was unclear why.

When he and his wife, Tyrinda L. Hendricks, who is 17 years older that the 35-year-old suspect, moved from Lake Shore Village, he left a forwarding address for a rental house in the Oak Grove community of Lexington County.

That 2,300-square foot, two-story home was a rental residence from 2006-2013, according to Lexington County property records. Today, it’s surrounded by a privacy fence.

Shortly after Hendricks did not land a full-time job with Mr. PC, he opend iTech Connections, a mobile phone sales and repair shop just east of Five Points, according to Columbia business license records. That business operated in 2012 and 2013, the records show. He and his wife licensed it together.

Across the Congree River, Hendricks has a current business license to operate iTech Connections on Augusta Road in West Columbia. His business license is paid for and active through the end of the year, city records show.

An employee at the West Columbia store said Friday he did not know Erick Hendricks, but that business has been open only a short time.

The owner of another nearby business also said he was not familiar with anyone by the name of Erick Hendricks. But he recognized a photo a reporter showed him as of someone who went by another name. The business owners could not recall the name.

Hendricks’ Facebook page states that he is from Arkansas and had lived in Richmond, Va. Other Facebook interactions indicate his mother still lives in Arkansas and his father lives in New York state.

Hendricks’ publicly visible Facebook posts appear largely peaceful and moralistic in tone, often referencing Islam with no hints at radicalism. Some reflect frustration.

Here are some excerpts from the page:

July 6, 2012: “Learn to learn. Learn your limits. Learn to push your limits to make new ones ... and never stop getting better... .”

Jan. 31, 2013: “Never emotionally attach yourself to idols or men. Everyone is in charge of there own soul, and not the sins of others. Islam is the truth.

#Eternity is too long to get it wrong.”

April 13, 2013: “You finally passed laws to break free from their plantations, then you shed blood to break free from their segregation, you educated yourselves in order break free from their hand-crafted inferior education ~ but you just won’t let go of that Religion he taught ya ~”

Feb. 14, 2014: “Leaving the hood is not abandoning your people ... leaving the hood is called: PROGRESS”

July 18, 2016: “Our black women can change America. Change America then you change the World. Reduce the demand for foolish men who have no honor or shame.”

One post in the spring of 2014 seems ironic now that it’s public that FBI agents were monitoring Hendricks’ social media activities.

May 7, 2014: “Look: if you can’t trust anybody... You’re in the wrong circles. Being smart is having good people around you who have your back or is with you no matter what.

~if you lay down with dogs, blame no one if you wake up with fleas...”

One of the FBI agents working the case against Hendricks said Hendricks was obsessed with security while connecting on some social media sites for terrorist sympathizers, according to a sworn statement that is part of the case against him. What Hendricks didn’t know was that he’d been communicating with an FBI undercover operative and others who’d agreed to cooperate with investigators.

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 11:24 PM with the headline "‘I don’t know people who don’t like him’: Ex-boss startled by charges against Hendricks."