Former Mental Hospital Director Faces Trial For Molestation

The former executive director of a state mental hospital was ordered today to stand trial for allegedly repeatedly molesting his adopted foster son.

Claude Edward Foulk Jr., 62, is charged with 35 felony counts, including 22 counts of forcible oral copulation, 11 counts of sodomy by use of force and two counts of forcible lewd act on a child.

At the end of a preliminary hearing that spanned two days, Long Beach Superior Court Judge J.D. Lord found there was sufficient evidence for Foulk to stand trial. He scheduled Foulk’s arraignment for April 27 in Long Beach Superior Court.

Foulk, the former head of Napa State Hospital, was arrested in February and was fired shortly after his arrest.

During the preliminary hearing, his alleged victim — identified only as Jonathan F. — testified that Foulk repeatedly sexually molested him.

The man, now 26, said he had already been in more than 10 foster homes and was 9 years old when he met Foulk in 1992 or 1993.

Foulk is accused of molesting the boy for more than a decade.

Prosecutors allege that there is “clear and corroborating evidence,” including Foulk’s alleged sexual abuse of several other boys in the 1970s, including another foster son — who was not adopted by Foulk — who testified hearing that he was also sexually molested.

In emotional testimony, Foulk’s adopted son testified Tuesday that things were “great” when the two initially lived together “right on the ocean” in Huntington Beach with a dog.

He said Foulk started touching him after the two moved to a home in Long Beach about the time he was 10.

“He was first touching and then it got more involved from there,” the young man testified, noting that the contact advanced to oral copulation.

“I just knew something wasn’t right about it,” he said under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Danette Gomez, while noting that he was happy to be in what appeared to be a stable family situation.

The young man described Foulk as a controlling adoptive father who would “want to know where I was every second” as a teenager, and who threatened him that he could take away everything he had given him if he told what had happened.

He said he told Foulk around 2005 — after the two moved to Sacramento — that he wanted the sexual abuse to stop.

A second foster son, identified in court as Donald M., told Lord that Foulk was working as a registered nurse when he befriended him during his stay as a hospital patient.

That man testified that he was about 9 years old when he went to live with Foulk and that he was repeatedly sexually and physically abused by him while living with his foster father between 1974 and 1986.

He testified that he would lie and say he had fallen down when teachers asked him why he had a black eye or bruises on his arms. He said he didn’t want to tell the truth because he thought he would be taken away and would be homeless.