3 men, one of them in tears, testify they were molested as kids by hospital director

3 men testify that hospital official molested them

LONG BEACH, Calif. — A slender 27-year-old man gazed across a courtroom at an older man in an orange jail jumpsuit and said that the older man — Claude Edward Foulk — was the foster father who had molested him for more than a decade.

Before breaking down in tears, the witness alleged that Foulk, the former executive director of Napa State Hospital, began sexually abusing him a few months after he took him in as a foster child.

The alleged victim was due to undergo cross-examination on Wednesday by Foulk’s lawyer who said the defendant maintains his innocence on 35 charges of molestation involving the foster son.

The Associated Press is not naming the witness because it has a policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual abuse.

At the end of Tuesday’s emotional court session, the man said he had come to testify in order to close a chapter in his life and move on.

He told of a difficult path which began when he was placed in foster care at birth. In his first nine years, he said he was shuttled to 10 different foster homes. Then Foulk entered his life, he said.

“At first, it was great to be in a stable family with a stable father,” he said, adding that they moved to a house in Huntington Beach. “We had a dog, it was right on the ocean. For six to nine months, it was everything I ever wanted.”

Then, he said the sexual assaults began.

“I was young,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do. I knew it wasn’t normal, but I didn’t know what to do.”

He put his face in his hands and wept when he was asked to give graphic descriptions of what was allegedly done to him.

He said that at times, he asked Foulk to stop.

“I remember him telling me: ‘This is normal — part of what a growing man needs to do,’” he testified. “It never came to me at the time to say no.”

He said Foulk told him that if he said anything, “he would send me back where I came from.”

As the attacks escalated, he said, “There was nothing I could do, and I would be crying for hours.” Sometimes, he said he feigned illness to escape from more molestations.

“I was afraid he could take everything I had,” he said.

When he finally tried to break away in 2004, Foulk became even more controlling, he said. Eventually he left.

Looking across the courtroom at Foulk, the witness said, “I know he needs to pay for what he’s done. I’ve lived this long with my knowledge of what he’s done … I’m here today to close this chapter of my life. I want to move on. I’m great with my life right now. It’s been extremely hard.”

The 62-year-old Foulk, who took over as head of one of the largest state mental facilities in the United Sates in 2007, had a lengthy career in mental health services in private and public sectors before that. He was fired from Napa State Hospital shortly after his arrest.

He listened dispassionately Tuesday as the man and two others portrayed Foulk as a serial molester who preyed upon needy boys. One 45-year-old man said he was nine years old when Foulk, then a hospital nurse, was assigned to care for him at a hospital where he was being treated for severe diabetes. He said Foulk befriended him and later took him in as another foster son. He said molestation began almost immediately after he moved in.

The 45-year-old man said his long repressed memories came back last year when he visited Napa State Hospital as part of his job of providing nurses to public institutions.

He said he asked about Foulk when he saw him on the grounds of the hospital. When he learned of Foulk’s high position and remembered what had happened, he said, he went to authorities.

The 45-year-old man and another man testified as corroborating witnesses for the younger man whose case is the only one that can be the subject of criminal charges because of statute of limitations in the other ones. Authorities have said they received reports of 13 cases of molestation involving Foulk dating from as early as 1965.

At the end of the preliminary hearing, Superior Court Judge J.D. Lord will decide if there is sufficient evidence to order Foulk to stand trial.