Marijuana farm suspect likely to get probation

By Rich Riggs
STAFF WRITER

HAYWARD A marijuana farmer who was caught in a police dragnet thrown out
to catch an East Bay serial rapist admitted on Monday to growing 159 pot
plants and will most likely get probation in a plea bargain.

Thomas Stanley Foster, 50, pleaded no contest to marijuana cultivation, and
a charge of possession of marijuana for sale was dropped in a plea bargain
entered into in San LeandroHayward Municipal Court Monday.

When a rape was reported near the soccer fields on the California State
University, Hayward, campus on Aug. 1, the East Bay Regional Park District
helicopter Eagle 5 was sent to do an aerial search for the rapist.

While a rapist wasn't found in the search, the helicopter crew noticed
scores of bright green plants thriving in what turned out to be Foster's
back yard on Bunker Hill Boulevard in the hills near the campus.

Hayward police were called and, according to police reports filed with the
court, when they knocked on Foster's door. Foster invited them in to search,
saying, "I don't have anything to hide."

Apparently he didn't: The 159 plants, all between five and six feet tall,
were growing openly in Foster's back yard. Some were planted in the ground
and others were in pots. All were well irrigated, and about six weeks from
harvest, Foster told police.

When police asked Foster if he had any cash, he' pulled $320 out of his
wallet and told them the money came from marijuana sales, but not recent
ones.

He also led police to his marijuana library, which included a stack of "High
Times" magazines, a book. entitled "Marijuana Botany" and another book
called "A Treasury of Hashish."

Foster, neatly dressed in a sports jacket and slacks and sporting a long,
blond pony tail, told Judge Reginald Saunders that what the police reports
said was true.

Under terms of his plea bargain, Foster won't have to do any state prison
time and will be placed on three years of formal probation, meaning he will
have to report regularly to a probation officer and take drug tests when
asked to.

He will also have to register as a drug offender.