Candidate has record
By Ethan Smith and John Joyce
Published in News on October 19, 2015 1:46 PM
Bevan Foster
District 4 Goldsboro City Council candidate Bevan Foster has no intention of hiding from his past.
In fact, he intends to use it to his advantage.
Foster has been convicted on four felony charges in his lifetime, all related to the possession or sale of cocaine.
When filing with the Wayne County Board of Elections, Foster, as required by law, disclosed his most recent felony conviction in Lenoir County. As a result of that 2009 conviction, Foster served 361 days in prison. He was released in February 2010.
His right to vote and right to run for an elected office were fully restored when his sentence expired. There are currently no pending cases or charges against Foster, and his record has remained clean since that date.
Foster, who is now 38, said he was aware that he would have to fill out the felony conviction disclosure form before he filed for City Council.
"When I finally called to the Board of Elections, I asked them and they told me I could run (with a prior felony conviction) and would have to fill out the form," Foster said. "So I said, 'OK, fine. I don't have anything to hide.' I'm not running away from it. To be honest, I'm not going to say everybody in the city knows, but a lot of people do. I mean, it's not like I was a saint back then, but it was nothing I felt like I needed to go into hiding about. If anybody wants to talk about it, I can talk about it. If anybody wants to know anything about it, I don't mind."
But Foster did not disclose on the form the three felony convictions on his record prior to his 2009 conviction.
Board of Elections Director Dane Beavers said it would be up to the state Board of Elections whether or not to investigate the legality of Foster not disclosing all four felony convictions when filing. As the law is currently written, it does not specify whether or not a convicted felon running for office must list every felony they have been convicted of, but that a candidate must only identify if they have been convicted of a felony.
"I didn't list all four because I figured the one I listed was the last one I had, and I didn't need to list all four because the last one is the one that's most relevant," Foster said. "As long as it's cleared from that point, the other ones, if you look up my record, they're there. It wasn't a fact of hiding them or anything. It was like, OK, if I listed that one, which was the last one, the rest of them, you know all of them are there, so they don't even really matter. It's the last one that counts, because (the Board of Elections) said as long as my rights have been restored after (the conviction) at a certain point, that's the point. So that's what I put down."
According to court documents from both counties, the first felony conviction occurred in Wayne County in 1999 and was followed by three more convictions in Lenoir County between 2004 and 2009.
His first felony conviction came in May 1999, after Foster pleaded no contest in Wayne County Superior Court to a charge of maintaining a vehicle for the sale, use or storage of cocaine. His sentence of three to four months was suspended and Foster was instead sentenced to serve 24 months of supervised probation.
The first conviction came two years after Foster returned to Goldsboro after attending East Carolina University from 1995 to 1997.
His involvement with possessing and selling cocaine was all his own doing, he said.
"I could've went back to school," Foster said. "It was hard, I didn't have a lot of family support at the time, and then it was me just being me. I was young, silly, you know what I mean, and I saw a way to make money and live this fake life that I thought was going to be glamorous and all cool, and that's what happened. Then it went downhill from there."
Foster gave up the drug lifestyle for the first time immediately following his first conviction. He went back to ECU, started studying again and began running track.
But it didn't last long.
"When I went back, instead of just sticking to it and staying in that lane and doing the right thing, when some things didn't go right because of immaturity, I went back to the left instead of going right," Foster said. "It's just growing. It took me a while. I'm not going to say I did it overnight. It took a long time. It was eight years of me continuously doing stuff that I finally looked at and said enough is enough."
Foster's next arrest came in June 2002 in Lenoir County. He was convicted in 2004 on one count of felony possession of cocaine and sentenced to 4 to 5 months in prison. That sentence was also suspended and Foster was instead sentenced to serve 24 months of supervised probation.
Then, in February 2006, Foster was again arrested and charged in Lenoir County with felony possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine. In March 2008, Foster was convicted. He was sentenced to serve 9 to 11 months in prison and his sentence was suspended once again.
Foster said his decision to continue to sell and possess cocaine, even as the felony convictions kept coming, was because of his own choices he made at that time.
"To be honest I'm just going to say it was me," Foster said. "I take responsibility for it. It's what I chose to do. Nobody made me do it. Nobody forced me. It was just me. I was stubborn, and it was just me. That's as good as I can explain it. Do I like the fact of what I used to do? No. But I went through it for a reason, which was to put me where I am now."
And lastly, Foster's most recent conviction in February 2009 -- the one that he disclosed to the election board as a matter of public record -- came after an arrest in Lenoir County in 2007. Foster was charged with possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine and maintaining a vehicle, dwelling or place for the sale, use or storage of cocaine. He pleaded guilty in February 2009 to one count of felony sale of cocaine and was sentenced to 12 to 15 months in prison.
On the record of his plea in 2009, Foster stated that he had never personally consumed any amount of cocaine, narcotics, medicines, alcohol, pills or other illicit substances.
He was put behind bars for the first time after his fourth conviction, which happened in the same year his son was turning 2 years old.
"That was an eye-opener," Foster said. "When you have to see your kid from a prison, that should change any man. If it doesn't, then there's not a lot of hope for you. I never saw my father in that situation, so I never wanted my son to see me there even though he had to. So it made me say, well, let me change some things."
In the past five years since he was freed from prison, Foster has completed two degrees in psychology and criminal justice at the Goldsboro campus of North Carolina Wesleyan University, is a licensed contractor and certified personal trainer, and works at The ABC's of Living Life, helping people with severe mental illnesses develop essential life skills.
Foster said his past can help him be the best candidate possible for the crime-ridden district he seeks to represent. He said since he has experienced what it is like to be involved in a life of crime, he can use that experience to help those in District 4 break free from the lifestyle similar to what he once led.
"If somebody doesn't want to vote for me because of my past, I can't be mad at you for that. Everybody has a past, good or bad," Foster said. "A lot of people probably don't have my past, but look at what I've done in the past five years. Two degrees, licensed contractor, certified personal trainer, all the people I've helped -- look at that. I can't run from my past. That's there, I understand that. But look at what I've done since then. You put me up against any other candidate and I guarantee you my numbers beat them when it comes to what I've done in the past five years. The city of Goldsboro needs new leadership. District 4 needs new leadership."