Other alleged victims come forward in Long Beach molestation case
By Tracy Manzer
Former mental health care facility executive Claude Edward Foulk Jr., 62, is shown here in his booking photo Wednesday.
LONG BEACH - News that a Napa man, and former head of a state mental hospital, was arrested for molesting his adopted son for more than decade in Long Beach had barely broken when calls of other alleged victims began flooding into the Long Beach Police Department, police said Thursday.
At least four messages regarding potential victims of alleged child molester Claude Edward Foulk Jr. were left by Thursday afternoon for the lead investigator on the case, said Long Beach Police Lt. Alex Avila.
"That's a lot of calls and in a short amount of time," the lieutenant said, noting that the lead investigator had just returned from Northern California, where Foulk was arrested Wednesday, and had yet to investigate the claims.
News of the 62-year-old former Long Beach resident's arrest broke Wednesday afternoon after he was arrested on the campus of Napa State Hospital, where he served as executive director until the time of his arrest Wednesday morning.
Police and the prosecutor's office said Wednesday they were aware of at least five victims with claims of sexual abuse dating back to 1975 and police believed there were other victims who had yet to come forward.
Sex Crimes detectives began investigating Foulk after one of the five victims, now in his 40s, contacted authorities after coming across his former abuser in Northern California, Avila said Thursday.
"One of the victims, I cannot identify him by name, came across his abuser while in Northern California," Avila said Thursday. "When (that victim) realized that his abuser was working at a mental hospital in a high position of authority with access to abuse others he decided to come forward. He didn't want anyone else to endure the abuse he had endured."
After talking to the first victim to come forward, police realized too much time had passed since those incidents to file a charge, Avila said.
Investigators, however, were able to use the formation that victim gave them - including the names of other possible victims - to find the four other victims, including one man in his 20's whose abuse had occurred within the statute of limitations, the lieutenant said.
Avila said having that information and the information of all possible victims, even those whose cases may be past the point of filing, is crucial.
"All that information helps build a stronger case," Avila said Thursday.
In some cases, victims with incidents of abuse that don't fall within the statute of limitations can still testify in court as character witnesses, authorities said.
And police might never have found out about Foulk, Avila and others said, if the first victim had not come forward.
"We were fortunate that one person, years after the abuse, decided to come forward," Avila said. "So often in these cases the victims will live their whole lives with the pain, they never say anything."
Police said Thursday that four of the victims were foster children placed in the care of Foulk, and that the 62-year-old suspect eventually adopted two of the victims.
One of the adopted sons is the man on which authorities based their 35-felony count case, said LBPD Cmdr. Jeff Johnson.
All of the victims were either foster children or friends of foster children taken in by Foulk, said Prosecutor Lesley Klein.
None of the victims were connected to Foulk's work at the Napa State Hospital, the deputy district attorney said.
But police strongly believe Foulk used his expertise in the field of mental health both in Southern California and Northern California to coerce and manipulate other victims, Avila and Johnson said.
California Department of Mental Health officials said they were not notified of the investigation until Foulk's arrest, and noted that he was immediately fired Wednesday.
In light of the allegations, the state department of Consumer Affairs said Thursday that it was working to revoke Foulk's nursing license, which he has held since 1974.
County records showed the Foulk was briefly married in the 1970s, but single when adopted the two boys.
There are no arrests for sex crimes on Foulk's record, Avila noted.
Foulk, who goes by the name Edward or Ed, was arrested by Long Beach police at the Napa hospital campus where he lived at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, police said.
The 62-year-old defendant was driven to Long Beach by investigators that same day and booked into the Long Beach City Jail on a $3.5 million warrant, where he remained on Thursday.
He is expected to be formally charged at his arraignment at the Long Beach Superior Court this morning, Klein said.
The 35 felony count charge filed against Foulk includes 22 counts of forcible oral copulation, 11 counts of sodomy by use of force, and two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.
All 35 counts pertain to the one victim, a former foster child who was 10 when Foulk made a home for the boy in Long Beach in the fall of 1992. That is when the alleged abuse began and it continued through 2003, when the boy moved with Foulk to Walnut, Calif., said Jane Robison, the DA's spokeswoman.
All the victims were boys, police said, and the vast majority of the incidents occurred in Long Beach, though there were incidents documented in Rancho Murieta, a Northern California community, police said.
"The Long Beach crimes date from 1975 to 2004. The Northern California crimes (date) from 2004 to 2006," Long Beach Police Sgt. Dina Zapalski said Wednesday.
As of Thursday, no additional counts had been filed in the case, Klein said.
Klein declined to say whether other counts may be pending if new cases are confirmed, citing the on-going investigation.
If convicted on all 35 counts, Foulk could face more than 280 years in prison, according to the DA's office.