East Texas

By ADAM RUSSELL
Staff Writer

RUSK — Cherokee County investigators assisted Homeland Security agents in an afternoon search and seizure of an airplane that landed at the Cherokee County airport to refuel Thursday.

Investigators arrested Rodney K. Dotson, 51, of Stateline, Nevada after discovering 31 pounds of hydroponic marijuana, with a street value estimated at $200,000, in the rear section of his 1979 Mooney, single engine aircraft.

According to the arrest affidavit the sheriff’s department was contacted just before 4 p.m. Thursday by agents with the Customs and Border Control Air Indiction Unit out of San Angelo who had been following the suspected aircraft in another aircraft since it entered Texas airspace. The agents requested assistance in the search of Dotson’s plane after it landed to refuel and gave the identifying tail numbers to the enforcement officers. By the time investigators reached the refueling station the agents had made contact with Dotson who refused consent to search the airplane. While Dotson waited to refuel his plane investigators called for Precinct 3 Deputy Constable Ray Bouman to bring his K-9 to the airport.

Chief Deputy Keith Radcliff said Dotson became argumentative and nervous when questioned by the agents but that they would have had no ability to stop him from leaving if he had refueled and took off before the K-9 unit arrived.

Capt. Chris White said there was one person ahead of Dotson’s plane in the refueling line when the call went out.

“We didn’t ask him to, but in effect, well let’s just say he took his time,” White said.

Dotson hurriedly fueled his plane when his turn finally came, then prepared for departure. Investigators told Dotson he was not under arrest but could not leave before paying for the fuel, the affidavit said. As Dotson paid an attendant for the fuel the K-9 unit arrived and began its scan of the plane starting at the front. Upon reaching the back of the plane Bouman’s K-9, “Ron” alerted the presence of narcotics by scratching the right rear section.

White said Judge Craig Fletcher was notified in an attempt to secure a probable cause search warrant for the plane. White said Fletcher expedited the process by meeting investigators at the airport with the warrant in hand but that Dotson’s lawyer, out of Jacksonville, beat them to the scene. He could not stop the search, however.

In the back section of the aircraft, behind the back seat and underneath a tarp, investigators found two black duffle bags filled with 28 plastic bags of marijuana.

White said Dotson has a residence in Baton Rouge, La. and that investigators believe he was on his way there to offload the narcotics.

Investigators also seized Dotson’s laptop, his I-phone, and notebooks from the plane but White could not comment on the information found within them because of the ongoing investigation.

White said Dotson likely faces federal charges to go along with the charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession of more than five but less than 50 pounds of marijuana.

Fletcher set Dotson’s bond at $975,000 for each count.

SEIZED: Cherokee County investigators (from left to right) Gina Battley, Martin Petin and Jamie Beene stack plastic bags filled with marijuana found inside a single prop plane at the Cherokee County Airport on Thursday.
(Courtesy Photo By Cherokee County Sheriff’s Dept.)