Pubdate: Tue, 10 Oct 2000
Source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times (TX)
Copyright: 2000 Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Address: P.O. Box 9136, Corpus Christi, TX 78469-9136
Feedback: http://www.caller.com/commcentral/email_ed.htm
Website: http://www.caller.com/
Author: Dan Parker
Bookmark: Texas clippings http://www.mapinc.org/states/tx.htm

OFFICERS ACCUSED OF FALSE ALIBI

Woman Never Noticed Officers, Detective Said

Two Corpus Christi police officers stole money from a motorist and tried to 
cover it up with an alibi, a police internal affairs investigator testified 
in court Monday.

Officers Raul Natividad and Thomas Hudgins, both 33, are charged with 
third-degree felony theft for allegedly stealing $5,000 cash from Enrique 
"Henry" Rivera, who admitted on the witness stand that he was a drug 
dealer. The officers have pleaded innocent.

Natividad and Hudgins were fired from the Corpus Christi Police Department 
in November. They have appealed and are on suspension without pay pending 
arbitration.

Natividad and Hudgins told police dispatchers they would respond to a call 
about a suspicious person in the 2700 block of Willard Street during the 
early hours of July 14, 1999, but the officers instead stopped Rivera on 
Lantana Street - far from Willard Street - prosecutor Mark Stolley has said.

Michael Trimyer, an internal affairs investigator with the Corpus Christi 
Police Department, testified Monday that he believed the officers 
volunteered to check out the suspicious-person report as an alibi for the 
theft.

After Rivera reported the theft, Trimyer phoned the woman who had reported 
a suspicious person walking near her home. Stolley played a tape of the 
conversation for jurors Monday.

On the tape, the woman said a police car may have stopped by her 
neighborhood but that she looked out her windows and never saw one. A 
dispatcher testified earlier that the caller didn't want officers to come 
to her door.

Police investigating Rivera's theft allegation never checked for 
fingerprints on the officers' patrol car or on Rivera's truck, Trimyer said 
under questioning by Natividad's defense attorney, Terry Shamsie.

"In retrospect, it would have been a good idea," Trimyer said.

John Aguirre, 27, testified last week that Natividad and Hudgins talked to 
him not long after the theft and admitted they stole the money from Rivera. 
Aguirre, who owned an auto accessories business at the time, said he often 
socialized with a group of police officers. 
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