Editor's note: This story was originally published on Jan. 11, 1991

NOME -- A hometown jury deliberated less than three hours Thursday night before acquitting state Rep. Richard Foster of all charges that he illegally possessed unregistered machine guns.

The verdict, returned at 10 p.m., was greeted by loud cheers by about 25 spectators, who also gave the jury a standing ovation as they exited the second-floor courtroom.

Asked to describe the flaw in the government's case that led to the quick, enthusiastic verdict, defense attorney Jim Gilmore said, "The flaw was seizing the guns in Nome so I could get the trial held here."

Foster supporters greeted jurors in the courthouse hallway with pats on the back, hugs and even a few tears.

The verdict "was based on the evidence they presented, or rather didn't present, " juror Victor Goldsberry told a rejoicing supporter.

The whole trial, from jury selection to verdict, took only three days.

Foster was his usual, quiet-spoken self as he accepted dozens of hugs from friends and family. He said he believed the jury "felt that there wasn't any evidence there that I've done any wrongdoing."

Earlier in the evening, jurors refused an offer from Judge Andrews Kleinfeld to go home at 6 p.m., after closing arguments, seemingly determined to get their task done as quickly as possible.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Rosenbaum, who faced an uphill battle from the day the case was moved to Nome for trial, told jurors Foster was a nice man, but had knowingly committed repeated violations of federal gun registration laws and urged them to find him guilty.

Gilmore argued that Foster, once a registered gun dealer, didn't really understand the registration laws. He told jurors they could convict Foster only if they were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that "government computers in Washington, D.C., " where gun registration records are kept, never make a mistake.

However, from the beginning, jurors were asked to choose between two Richard Fosters.

The government's Richard Foster sounds like a dangerous man: He likes to wear camouflage fatigues. He's a gun nut with a special passion for machine guns, which included building but not registering them.

He was a Vietnam vet with two tours of duty under his belt.

He enlisted an innocent friend to commit a felony by asking him to hide a bunch of illegal guns.

When the government's Richard Foster learned he was being investigated, he tried to confuse things by reporting a bogus burglary in which only his gun records were stolen.

One can imagine federal agents tallying up this list and adding to it the fact that Foster lives in Nome, population 3,400, an enclave huddled at the edge of the Bering Sea, cold most of the time, isolated and gun-happy.

The other Richard Foster is a 44-year-old father of nine, balding, bespectacled, given to telling groaner jokes. He's laid-back but has a manic laugh and when someone is needed to go pick up the pizza, he will offer to do it.

Foster and his wife Kathy live in a five-bedroom home a few blocks off Front Street with seven, sometimes eight, of the nine children in their family. Neighbors have been bringing food dishes to the house during the trial breaded pork chops Wednesday night, and cold cuts.

This Richard Foster kids about installing a drain in his new linoleum living room floor so he can just hose it down to simplify cleaning up after his brood.

People get to know each other in a place like Nome, and they have long memories. Foster once managed the family air taxi service.

"He used to let me charge when he had an airplane, " said Nora Titus, who was resting her injured leg and hoping to cadge a cigarette outside a local grocery store.

"He's very kind."

"He's a little bit eccentric, but I don't think there's anything too strange about him, " said Mike Maloney, a receiving coordinator at the Alaska Commercial Co.

"He's an everyday guy who enjoys going out and popping a few rounds, " Maloney said. "I like to shoot guns too.

Nearly every family in Nome owns a gun, according to Maloney, who sells weapons as part of his job. Guns are for protection against the bears that roam the streams just out of town, and to take game.

Maloney doesn't approve of machine guns, and he thinks there should be a waiting period before someone can buy a gun, but he has nothing bad to say about Foster.

"He's very open with people. . . . There's nothing threatening about him."

"I don't think he'd hurt a flea, " said Dave Elston, who sat through most of the trial. "He'd walk away from someone who wanted to fight."

Foster is the son of Willie Foster, a pilot who settled in Nome in 1936, married Jane Nelson of Koyuk, served as a P-38 fighter pilot during World War II, then came home and founded Foster Aviation.

Richard Foster attended school in Nome and Kotzebue and went off to Vietnam in 1969, where he served in Army intelligence, not in combat. His last assignment was tracing deserters in Saigon's seamier quarters.

He brought a Vietnamese wife home with him in 1971. They were married for 17 years and had two children, both of whom stayed with Foster when the couple divorced.

After his Vietnam duty, Foster took over management of his father's airline and ran it until he decided to run for the legislature in 1988.

Over the years, he has held just about every local office possible school board, city council, hospital board, Native corporation officer. His wife works at the women's shelter. His kids are honor students.

During the trial, a commander in the National Guard, a retired police chief, the Nome city clerk and the board chairman of the St. Michael Native Corp. testified for him as character witnesses.

By closing arguments, prosecutor Rosenbaum knew the biggest obstacle between him and a conviction was the affection the town held for the Richard Foster it knew.

They had never met the government's Richard Foster.

ADVERTISEMENT