Ex-SD lawmaker settles foster daughter lawsuit

CARSON WALKER

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A former state lawmaker and one of two foster daughters he was convicted of raping under the ruse of harvesting their eggs have settled a federal lawsuit.

Ted Klaudt was convicted in Pierre on four counts of second-degree rape involving the two children at his hotel suite in 2005 and 2006. He pleaded guilty to two counts of witness tampering after the trial to avoid a second trial on charges he raped the same girls in his home in Walker.

Details of the settlement were not included in the court file and attorneys said the terms of the agreement were confidential. The lawsuit sought at least $75,000 in damages from Klaudt and his wife, Connie, who is accused of not doing enough to protect the girls from her husband's abuse.

Klaudt is serving a sentence of 54 years in prison.

During the trial in Pierre, Klaudt's attorney told jurors that even though Klaudt was wrong to trick the girls into letting him touch them, his actions did not amount to rape because the girls consented in the belief they could make money from donating their eggs to infertile couples.

Prosecutors countered that Klaudt did rape the girls because he coerced them into fake medical examinations and they did not consent to what Klaudt was really doing. The federal lawsuit reiterated the argument — that Klaudt's deception made any consent invalid.

During one of the legislative sessions, one of the girls served as a legislative page, a high school student who runs errands for lawmakers.

The girls lived in Klaudt's home as part of a program that provides foster care for young people who have no safe home to return to after completing time in juvenile reform programs.

The Associated Press has a policy of not naming sexual assault victims.

Klaudt served eight years in the state House from 1999-2006 and left because of term limits.