Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Man Arrested at Airport For Having a Box Cutter In a Hollowed Out Book

A 21 year old man from Clearwater Florida was arrested Sunday when Airport Security found a box cutter inside of a hollowed out book. If convicted he faces up to ten years in prison.
His name is Benjamin Baines Jr and he was arrested at the Tampa International Airport when he tried to get through airport security, which ran his backback through an X-ray machine and saw the image of a box cutter.

Security then searched the backback and found a book called "Fear Itself", which was hollowed out and a box cutter placed into the space.

After Baines was read his rights, he said his cousin had cut away the pages to make the hollow section in the book. Later, reports state, he said he had hollowed it out himself to hide money and marijuana from his roommates.

Baines told officers he was moving to Las Vegas and forgot the cutter was in the book.

Officers found books in the backpack titled "Muhammad in the Bible," "The Prophet's Prayer" and "The Noble Qur'an." He also had a copy of the Quran and the Bible.


A background check on Baines showed he had no warrants and no arrest record. He plead guilty in court on Monday, to charges of carrying a concealed weapon and was sentenced to thirty days in jail.

On Sunday federal charges filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for attempting to board an aircraft with a concealed dangerous weapon, according to Steve Cole, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa.

He will be arrested by federal officers when he is released from jail on the state charges.

Initial reports after the 9-11 hijackings claimed that the hijackers who seized the airliners on September 11 had used box cutters to attack some of the crew and passengers.

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