Ex-Rock Singer Arrested in Pot Raid in Oxnard : Drugs: Two hundred pounds are seized. A composer’s son and 2 others are being held in what authorities are calling the county’s biggest marijuana bust this year.

Three Oxnard residents--including a man who once sang with the rock group Toto--have been arrested in what authorities say was the largest marijuana seizure in Ventura County this year.

Joseph Stanley Williams, 29, the lead singer on two Toto albums, and two others were being held on suspicion of possession of cannabis for sale after about 200 pounds of marijuana was discovered Tuesday at the house they shared in north Oxnard.

Williams is the son of John Williams, Boston Pops conductor for more than 10 years and composer of many movie sound tracks, including “Star Wars” and “Jaws.”

The marijuana, worth about $500,000 on the street, is one of the largest seizures of the drug in recent years, said Lt. Gary Pentis of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“This is pretty big, probably the second largest in at least four or five years,” Pentis said. He said Tuesday’s raid was the largest involving marijuana this year. The biggest marijuana bust he recalls was in Oxnard in 1987 in which 1,100 pounds was seized.

About a month ago, Pentis said, investigators were alerted to suspected drug activity at the house on Oneida Place, a quiet street north of the Oxnard Airport.

When sheriff’s deputies and Oxnard police served a search warrant late Tuesday morning, they had to pry open the front door of the well-kept, one-story house, Pentis said. Inside, they found high-grade marijuana “packaged for sale” in lots of a pound or more, some of it stored in two home freezers to maintain its potency, Pentis said.

One of the residents, Anita Sue Webb, 33, was arrested at the house. Deputies found Williams and the third suspect, James Robert Welch, 32, at the nearby River Ridge Golf Course.

“They had just approached the 8th tee when narcs ruined their whole day,” Pentis said.

The three suspects were being held at the Ventura County Jail with bail set at $100,000 each. County social workers took custody of Webb’s two children, a 15-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, who were not home during the raid.

In addition to marijuana possession, Williams was accused of possessing cocaine after deputies found several packets of the drug at the house, Pentis said. They also confiscated $3,580 in cash and several vehicles, including a Mazda RX-7 sports car, a Winnebago, a Chevrolet van and a Honda.

Pentis said the investigating agencies, which included the California Highway Patrol, will try to obtain the vehicles by forfeiture if it can be proved that they were purchased with drug profits.

Investigators do not know what effect the bust will have on the availability of marijuana in Ventura County, Pentis said. “Anybody with a couple hundred pounds of weed is a major supplier,” he said.

One neighbor said she was shocked to learn about the cache of drugs across the street. “I had no idea,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “This is a nice neighborhood.”

She said she was leaving to baby-sit her grandson when she noticed six black cars parked outside the house and deputies surrounding it with guns drawn.

In arrest reports, Welch listed no occupation, Webb said she is a waitress and Williams described himself as a songwriter, Pentis said. Papers found at the house established Williams’ connection with Toto, Pentis said.

Williams was lead singer for the rock group’s last two albums, “Fahrenheit” and “The Seventh One,” according to a Columbia Records spokesman. After “The Seventh One” was released in 1988, the group went on tour and then on hiatus.

John Williams of Westwood, the rock singer’s father, could not be reached for comment.