Source:Oakland Tribune Contact: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 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.