A Houston man must now fight to expunge his criminal record after police mistook half a pound of cat litter for methamphetamine during a traffic stop.

24-year-old Ross LeBeau was stopped by a Harris County Sheriff's Deputy on December 5. According to the Sheriff's Office, the deputy smelled marijuana, and LeBeau admitted to having pot in the vehicle.

LeBeau's vehicle was searched, and deputies found what they believed to be meth. Two field tests reportedly identified the substance as meth, and LeBeau was charged with possession of a controlled substance and held in jail for three days before being released on $50,000 bond.

Just one problem: the substance that tested positive for meth was simply cat litter. According to LeBeau, his father gave him a sock full of litter to prevent his windows from fogging up - something we like to call a "life hack".

A third test by the Harris County Sheriff's Office forensics lab indicated that the litter was not a controlled substance.

The charges against LeBeau were dropped, but he says the incident has harmed his reputation and caused him to miss work, for which he has demanded an apology from those who conducted the erroneous field tests.

"I would like an apology," LeBeau told KRIV News. "I was wrongly accused and I'm going to do everything in my power, with my family's backing, to clear my name."

The Sherrif's Office maintains that LeBeau gave no indication of what the substance was during the stop and that deputies simply followed basic protocol.

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