Penn State professor, wife, arrested on pot charges

Centre Daily Times, PA
AP
07/12/06

READING, Pa. - The theater director of a Penn State campus and his wife, a local arts center director, were arrested on drug charges after marijuana plants were found in their home by police responding to a burglar alarm.

Arriving at the home of Karen and Steven Haver early Saturday, police entered through a bay window which they found open. Seeing lights in the basement, they found five 3-foot marijuana plants with their own watering system, said Jose Colon, a Reading police investigator.

The Havers, who were not home, were charged with manufacturing and possessing marijuana, possessing drug paraphernalia and conspiracy. Colon said the marijuana was being grown for personal use.

Karen Haver, 36, was fired Tuesday as director of the Sovereign Performing Arts Center, a post she had held since 2001.

"We're held to a very high standard," said Robert Cavalieri, the center's general manager. "We are a very public business."

Steven Haver, 45, is a professor at Penn State's York campus and theater director of the school's Pullo Family Performing Arts Center. A Penn State spokeswoman said she could not discuss his status because it was a personnel matter.

Bail was originally set at $1 million for Steven Haver and $500,000 for his wife. The couple spent two days in jail and were released on their own recognizance Monday.

Allan Sodomsky, the Havers' attorney, called the original bail amounts "patently absurd."

"Bail is not a penalty," Sodomsky said. "There is no flight risk. There is no danger to anyone. This is two upstanding people in the community."

A hearing is set for Aug. 18.