NSW: Wife granted access to frozen assets of her ex-cop husband

AAP General News (Australia)
12-13-2006
NSW: Wife granted access to frozen assets of her ex-cop husband

By Amy Coopes

SYDNEY, Dec 13 AAP - The wife of a former detective committed to stand trial for corruption
has been granted access to $5,000 of his frozen assets by the NSW Supreme Court.

Karen Foster had applied for $40,000 which was seized from her husband, Samuel John
Foster, under the Criminal Assets Recovery Act after he was charged with corruption, robbery
and drug-related offences.

Foster, 41, is due to stand trial in the Sydney District Court in April next year on
16 charges relating to alleged fake drug busts carried out during his time as an officer
of the National Crime Authority (NCA).

The state froze the $40,000 from Foster's Police Credit Union account in November last
year pending resolution of the charges.

Mrs Foster - the ex-detective's second wife - was seeking access to the money to help
repay loans and to settle and sell a jointly-owned dairy business.

She told Acting Justice Harvey Cooper she needed the money to help meet living expenses
for herself and her four children, one of whom is the 10-and-a-half-month-old child of
Foster.

Her other children are aged 16, 13 and four, and one is a foster child for whose care
she receives a state pension.

Mrs Foster also receives parental and family assistance payments.

Acting Justice Cooper said Mrs Foster had a genuine need for assistance with reasonable
living expenses, but declined to grant her access to the full amount.

He allowed her $5,000 to help with her daily costs, saying she had a "nil" earning
capacity for the next 12 months as she struggled with depression and her young children.

"The trial of Samuel Foster is due to he heard next April," Acting Justice Cooper said.

"If he is found not guilty then the restraining order (on the funds) may be quashed.

"If he is found guilty then the Police Integrity Commission will probably make an application
for an assets forfeiture order and it would be open to the present applicant to apply.

"However, the plaintiff needs reasonable living expenses in the meantime."

Foster and fellow former NCA officer James Anthony McCabe will stand trial on April 16, 2007.

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KEYWORD: FOSTER

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