NEWS > 14 December 2007

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Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney
14 December 2007

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Corrupt ex-cop likely to stay

A corrupt former NSW police officer involved in staging fake drug busts is likely to serve his minimum five-and-a-half year jail term in protective custody, after threats from other prisoners.

Samuel Foster, 43, pleaded guilty to a string of drug, armed robbery, corruption and deception charges.

The charges related to a series of faked arrests between 2002 and 2004, set up in order to take drugs and cash from dealers.

Foster also faced charges relating to a shopping spree using fake credit cards while on bail last year.

In the NSW District Court on Friday, Judge Deborah Sweeney jailed Foster for a maximum of seven-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of five-and-a-half years.

In sentencing the former NSW Police Force and National Crime Authority officer, Ms Sweeney took into account help he was providing to authorities on other cases and his early guilty plea, which had saved a complex trial.

She told the court Foster already spent 20 hours a day in his cell under protective custody, which was unlikely to change.

The court was told he did not associate with other inmates and since reports of his status as a former police officer appeared in the media, there were rumours he wore a listening device to gather evidence against them.

He had also received threats from another prisoner, who he arrested when a police officer.

Ms Sweeney noted psychiatric reports showed Foster was depressed at the time of the offences, which he earlier told the court were committed to fund a drug habit.

He was addicted to cocaine, ecstasy and ice and also abused alcohol.

Ms Sweeney told the court that while it didn't mitigate his actions, it went some way towards explaining them.

"The facts make clear that the offences were highly planned and organised," she said.

Foster had kicked the habit until the drug-fuelled shopping spree in 2006, and remained clean and was seeing a psychologist in prison, the court was told.

Ms Sweeney said Foster had betrayed the trust of the community.

She said he had no previous criminal convictions and character witnesses had spoken highly of him.

"By his criminal acts he has brought himself low," she said.

Foster joined the police force in 1984 and was promoted to sergeant before being seconded to the National Crime Authority in Sydney in 2001.

He was arrested in 2004 after a Police Integrity Commission (PIC) investigation which used mobile phone records and a listening device.

Dressed in a dark suit, he sat quietly through Friday's proceedings, occasionally chewing on his fingernails.

Foster will be eligible for release on March 31, 2012.

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Article sourced from

Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney14 December 2007

Corrupt ex-cop likely to stay

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Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney
14 December 2007