Jury Begins Hearing Case Against Former State Mental Hospital Director

(CNS) Posted Wednesday January 26, 2011 – 2:22pm

The former executive director of a state mental hospital sexually molested his adopted foster son for more than a decade, until the young man was 21 and ran away from home, a prosecutor told jurors today.

Defense attorney Richard Poland questioned the accounts of key prosecution witnesses, including four other men who contend they were molested as boys by Claude Edward Foulk Jr. He told the Long Beach Superior Court jury that they should conclude at the end of the case that the prosecution had not met its burden.

Foulk, the 63-year-old former head of Napa State Hospital, is charged with 22 counts of forcible oral copulation, 11 counts of sodomy by use of force and two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child -- all involving his adopted foster son.

In her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Danette Gomez told jurors that they will also hear from the four other men, including two of Foulk's relatives, who also contend they were sexually molested by Foulk.

Those alleged crimes are outside the statute of limitations and cannot be prosecuted,

Gomez said.

The prosecutor told jurors the evidence would show that Foulk enticed the boys -- who largely came from dysfunctional and poor families -- with camping trips and showered them with gifts and toys, then stole their innocence.

``You're going to have no reason to believe they lied,' Gomez said of the five men, who she said ``have tried to piece together their lives through the years.'

The charges involve Foulk's adopted foster son -- identified in court as Jonathan F. -- who was allegedly sexually abused between 1992 and 2003.

The boy -- who had been in the foster care system his entire life -- was 9 when he went to live with Foulk and was eventually adopted by him, the prosecutor said.

The two lived in Long Beach and Rancho Murieta in Sacramento County, according to the deputy district attorney.

Gomez told jurors that they would hear that the defendant's adopted son was afraid to say no to Foulk because he was afraid he would be sent back into foster care, and that he was subjected to oral copulation and sodomy before running away from home at age 21.

Foulk responded by putting out missing person's posters and contacting Long Beach police, according to the prosecutor.

One of the other men -- who had allegedly been molested by Foulk in the 1970s -- reported what happened to authorities after seeing him on the grounds of Napa State Hospital, prompting an investigation, Gomez told jurors.

Foulk's attorney told jurors that his client started out as a registered nurse who would take patients out to lunch and worked his way up to being the director of the Napa state mental hospital.

He said his client has tried throughout his life ``to make lives better.'

Poland questioned the credibility of Foulk's adopted foster son, saying he was a ``troubled child' who ``has been a thief' and ``taken anything that he could,' including a coin collection that had belonged to Foulk's father and was pawned.

Foulk ``was a strict disciplinarian,' the defense attorney told jurors.

He said Foulk's family had been ``torn apart' because his father started a successful business and one person who thought he should have a bigger share of the profits wound up going to jail, which ``started a rift in the family.'

Of the prosecution's case against his client, Poland told jurors, ``When it comes to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it just isn't here.'

Foulk has remained jailed on $3.5 million bail since being arrested last Feb. 24 at the state mental hospital, where he had worked as executive director since 2007. He was fired that day by the California Department of Mental Health.