# Austin Officer With Pot Claims He Was Framed



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*DAVE MICHAELS*
_The Dallas Morning News_










AUSTIN - The state corrections officer caught this week with 21 pounds of marijuana in his vehicle at a Border Patrol checkpoint said Wednesday that he was set up.

Curtis W. Hinson, 27, said the circumstances of his arrest "look pretty bad," but he insisted he was framed by people who were supposed to be selling him the truck he was driving.

"I was set up," said Mr. Hinson, a veteran officer at the Stiles Unit in Beaumont. "I did not know they [the drugs] were in there. These people played me really good."

Mr. Hinson said he did not know the Chevrolet Tahoe he was driving was owned by Cheryl Arterburn, a Houston woman who recently served 15 months in a state jail for car theft and forgery of a financial instrument, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Ms. Arterburn also was convicted of prostitution several times and possession of a controlled substance in 2002, according to public records. She could not be reached for comment.

Ms. Arterburn's husband, Charles R. Arterburn, was found dead in a Houston field last month. His body was so badly decomposed that investigators have not been able to determine how he died, police said.

"I don't know them," Mr. Hinson said. "I thought I knew whose car it was. I didn't run a check on it." Asked how he had come across the vehicle, he said it had been a "friend-of-a-friend type thing."

U.S. Border Patrol agents detained Mr. Hinson on U.S. Highway 77 in South Texas on Monday after a drug-sniffing dog led them to five bundles of marijuana hidden in the spare tire of his truck. He was wearing his state uniform; on Wednesday, he declined to say why.

If convicted of possession of marijuana, a third-degree felony, Mr. Hinson faces up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the prison system, said Mr. Hinson's supervisors have not decided his future with the agency because they have not received a report of his arrest. He has been placed on leave, she said.

Mr. Hinson said there was a reasonable explanation for his trip and that he would offer it in court.

"I'm as square as they come," he said. "I don't even drink, much less do illegal drugs. They just got me, man. They got me good. I wasn't paying attention."

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