Somerville police take woman to jail based on 11-year-old misdemeanor arrest warrant

Mar. 23—A stay-at-home mom who uses her story of addiction and recovery to give hope to incarcerated women was taken from her home on a February night, booked into Morgan County Jail and cavity searched after Somerville police stumbled upon an 11-year-old misdemeanor arrest warrant.

Neither the defendant nor the complainant remember the incident that sparked the 2013 harassment charge.

Clarissa Curbow, 32, was a user of intravenous meth, among other drugs, between 2012 and 2017.

"I was in active addiction," she said. "I was bad. Messing with bad people; doing bad stuff. God really grabbed a hold of me and saved my life."

A clear-eyed Curbow wearing a hoodie that said "Jesus dropped the charges" sat on her front porch in Hartselle on Tuesday and shared her story. She's married now with two young children. She smoked a Marlboro cigarette to calm her nerves.

"I was arrested on May 25, 2017, at 10 a.m. I had plans that day to meet up with a friend of mine at 11 a.m. He was going to hit me with my first shot of heroin. He overdosed and died that day. Instead, I went to jail an hour earlier."

Curbow was booked into jail on several forgery charges and trafficking meth. She pleaded guilty to lesser charges — possession with intent to distribute and one forged check — and was sentenced to a year in jail with three years of probation.

Today, you won't find Curbow's criminal record in the Alabama system.

"A year and a half into my probation, I had completed all of my counseling and other requirements, down to paying off my fines and restitution. I got off probation a year and a half early and then I filed for a pardon from the state. Within a year I had a full pardon."

After the pardon, Curbow hired an attorney to have the records expunged.

"Since then, I've just been trying to do what God put in my heart to do, and that's to teach other people in addiction and try to show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel."

Curbow is heavily involved in Daystar Church. She also volunteers with Kairos Prison Ministry. Recently, she visited Aliceville prison and ministered to incarcerated women there for several days.

By all accounts, Curbow completely turned her life around. She's been sober almost seven years. Her oldest daughter, now 12, was 8 months old when Curbow became an addict. The memory of those years lingers behind a hard-won domestic peace. — Warrant

Curbow is best friends with Kayla Cox, whom she's known since high school. Their friendship hasn't always been easy: During Curbow's addiction years, the relationship suffered. In 2013, Cox filed a harassment complaint against Curbow.

"Back in 2013, I was an addict, and I was acting crazy, so did I deserve that warrant back then? Yeah, probably. Do I remember the incident? No," Curbow said.

Cox doesn't remember it either.

At 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 2, as Curbow was getting ready to take a shower, her oldest daughter came to her and told her cops were outside.

"I was like, well calm down, I haven't done anything. We're fine."

The last time Curbow interacted with police, they came to her in 2020 to tell her that her brother had died. Her first thought when they showed up in the evening in February was that another relative had passed.

Her husband came to her next. He told her the police wanted to speak with her. Curbow went out on the porch.

"My daughter was standing right there at the door watching all of it. She was terrified, you know, because she remembers when I went to jail originally and how long I was gone and what that did to her. That was a very emotional and painful thing for her to go through back in 2017."

Since Curbow was wearing a bathrobe, the police allowed her to go back inside the house to change. Her daughter, in tears, asked her what was going on.

"Baby, I've got to go to jail, but I promise you I'm coming back," Curbow told her.

"Mom, you promised me this wouldn't happen again," her daughter, now sobbing, replied.

Curbow became tearful recounting the scene.

"I was terrified," she said. "Even though the words were coming out of my mouth that I would be back, I wasn't sure. You never really know. I'm the glue. My husband makes the money, and I'm the glue that holds us together." — Somerville police

Jeff Arnold was hired as the Somerville Police Department chief in October. He came from California with 25 years of law enforcement experience.

"What happened here is we've been going through things with a fine-toothed comb looking for things that haven't been done," he said. "My sergeant was going through the warrants and found some that hadn't been taken care of, and that's all there is to it. So, we went out and served one."

Curbow wondered why the 2013 harassment charge didn't come up in the system when she was arrested in 2017, or when she sought a pardon and expungement, or every time she's been pulled over for a traffic stop in the intervening years.

"Why in the world it was not put into the national system before this, I have no idea," Arnold said. "We have original warrants filed in our office. I don't know, at this point, how many older warrants there are. My sergeant was put in charge of that."

Arnold explained that a warrant is an order signed by a judge and that his department doesn't have the discretion to decline to serve one.

Curbow wasn't required to pay a bond following her February arrest — her bond was listed as "own recognizance," meaning all she had to do was sign an agreement to appear in court. Despite this, she spent several hours in Morgan County Jail. Since she arrived late at night and was released after 2 a.m. the following day, as far as the courts are concerned, she spent two days in jail.

In municipal court before Judge Larry Madison a few days later, with Cox in tow, Curbow's charges were dropped. The only thing left to close out the case was an unanswered jail housing bill.

"Municipalities, excluding Decatur, which has a separate agreement, pay a set daily fee for their inmates and that is billed to the municipalities," said Morgan County Sheriff's Office spokesman Mike Swafford. The fee is $41 per day per inmate.

Cox, feeling some responsibility for Curbow's $82 housing fee, offered to pay. Ed Henry, who attends church with Curbow and caught wind of her new legal trouble, told the women not to pay the bill. He offered to accompany them back to court on March 14, the bill's deadline.

"I said she doesn't need to pay it, this is on the city of Somerville," Henry said. "They waited 11 years to serve a warrant; they can't expect the person that filed it 11 years ago to have the same sentiment about filing the charges."

Henry is a former Alabama state representative and the state's co-chair of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. In 2018, Henry was indicted for Medicare fraud, and he pleaded guilty in 2019. Just before Trump left office, Henry received a pardon.

"I called a friend of mine, Darren Tucker, and laid out for him what was happening," he said. Tucker is the mayor of Somerville. "He said that shouldn't have happened and that he would make it right. He said he'd be at court with her and take care of it."

Tucker didn't show up at court. He said he "may have" told Henry that he could go to court if Henry needed him to. Tucker was out of town last week to witness the birth of his grandchild.

"I told him that he could go out there, and if it was some type of fee for the city of Somerville — but I'm not a judge, I'm just a mayor," Tucker said. "He's wanting to throw me under the bus, saying that I told him that I would fix a ticket for them or something like that. I'm not the court."

Henry shared screenshots of a text conversation with a contact named Darren Tucker.

"I'll straighten it out on the next court date with Judge (Larry) Madison," one of Tucker's messages, dated Feb. 12, reads. "Call me anytime, and you can even give Ms. Curbow my cell number."

On March 12, Henry texted Tucker a reminder that he would be coming to court with Curbow.

"Yes, I've told Regina to have Judge Madison to dismiss it," Tucker wrote back.

In court March 14, Henry said Madison noticed his attendance and called him, along with Curbow, before the bench. Henry told the judge that he came to court to make sure that the jail bill would be dropped as Tucker claimed.

Madison, who could not be reached for comment, responded that the mayor had no influence in his courtroom, according to Henry.

"He was adamant that this was somehow a travesty of justice that was only going to be corrected by one of them paying the $82," Henry said. He ultimately decided to pay the bill himself to get the issue resolved.

Now, he's on a mission.

"We'll seek correction through either state or local legislation that prevents the ability of city judges from charging innocent individuals — people who are not convicted of a crime — for their incarceration."

Alabama Code 14-6-22 stipulates that courts shall require a convicted defendant in a misdemeanor case to pay housing costs associated with their incarceration, not to exceed $20 per day.

"I really believe Somerville is breaking the law," Henry said.

Tucker said he doesn't believe Somerville did anything differently from other municipalities.

"If he (Henry) feels like the law has been broken, then tell him to ante up and take Somerville to court," he said. "I wouldn't have went to court in Somerville and showed out — that's what he did, he showed out last Thursday. Showed himself. And then when the lady and her friend came last month, they didn't really behave the way they should have in court, and I don't know if that had any bearing on the judge's ruling or not, but they followed the letter of the law, and that's all I expect them to do."

After his interview on Tuesday, Tucker reached back out to The Daily and said he investigated the situation further. He said all court costs for Curbow were waived; however, since the $82 was owed to Morgan County, not Somerville, he said he wasn't sure if Somerville could even ethically pay someone's fine to the county.

"Henry got upset, and he's been taking his spoon and fork and he's pounding on his highchair," he said. "He probably just needs to put a pacifier in his mouth. That's what I'm going to tell him."

Henry expressed concern over how many Alabama residents might be suffering in the court system unnoticed.

"It's sad what happens in that environment when they have nobody to stand up for them," he said. "They can't afford a lawyer, there's probably not anybody in their immediate circle that has any understanding of what's going on in that courtroom ... ."

In jail on Feb. 2, Curbow said she was treated by staff like the "scum of the Earth." She spent the entire time in the holding cell, on a metal bedframe, praying and crying.

"This is wrong," she said. "I'm sure I'm not the only person this has happened to. Until somebody speaks up to do something about it it's never going to change."

If Curbow hadn't "found Jesus," she said the emotionally devastating experience of her February arrest might have brought on a relapse.

"It's no wonder why people get discouraged, and they go back to doing what they've always done, because they're sitting here trying to do right and just getting kicked in the teeth the whole time anyway."

— david.gambino@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438. @DD_DavidGambino