Steve Haver spent a weekend in jail on $1 million bail, wound up with a felony conviction for drug manufacturing, lost his driver's license for six months, and expects to lose his job as general manager of the performing arts center at Penn State's York campus.
The case has been on the front page of the local paper more than most murders, he said.
After being arrested and jailed on $500,000 bail, Karen Haver quickly lost her job as manager of the Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading.
Monday, though, the couple got some good news: Authorities wouldn't seize her house after all - just the growing equipment.
Under Pennsylvania law, property can be seized by police in connection with a felony drug arrest, and police not only seized the growing apparatus but former Berks County District Attorney Mark Baldwin filed for forfeiture of the house.
Steve Haver described it as an "1895 Romanesque revival semidetached rowhome," last appraised at $137,000.
As part of a settlement approved Monday by Berks County Judge Jeffrey K. Sprecher, prosecutors withdrew that request while the Havers, through their attorney, agreed to forfeit the seized equipment.
"It was a rather sophisticated growing operation," Assistant District Attorney Adrian Shchuka said. "... It wasn't like somebody went to Home Depot and bought some peat moss."
Besides five three-foot-high plants, police found a high-powered lighting system, a self-contained water system, a fan with a dehumidifier, and devices for measuring temperature and testing soil, Shchuka said.
"The timer came from Wal-Mart, that's how high-tech it was," Haver said, confirming he was the occasional user and grower, not his wife.
The equipment, worth only "a couple hundred dollars," was originally purchased to grow plants for their backyard garden, which was part of a recent garden tour, he said.
