The California Supreme Court today denied a petition for review submitted by the defense in the case against Claude Edward Foulk Jr., a former executive director of a state hospital for sex offenders who was sentenced to 248 years in prison last year for sexually assaulting his foster son who lived with him in Long Beach and Northern California.
The refusal of state’s highest court to hear the case comes just a few months after California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld his sentence, rejecting Foulk’s claim that his right to due process was violated by the admission of testimony from four other men who said they were sexually molested by him in incidents dating as far back to 1966. The three-justice panel also rejected the defense’s claim that the prison sentence handed down to Foulk, who was 63 at the time, is “cruel and unusual punishment” for a man with no prior criminal record.
“None of the uncharged offenses were remote,” Associate Justice Patti S. Kitching wrote on behalf of the panel in its June 20 ruling. “Instead, they were evidence of a continuum of sexual abuse by appellant, who denied committing any offense.”
The California Supreme Court’s denial of the defense’s petition seeking review means that Foulk must serve his sentence.
Foulk was convicted in a Long Beach Superior Court in February 2011 of 31 felony counts of sexually assaulting a foster child including two counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child, 20 counts of forcible oral copulation and nine counts of sodomy by use of force. He was aquitted on four other charges that involved alleged crimes that occurred after his foster son had turned 18 but was still living with him.
Foulk was arrested on February 24, 2010 when a former victim—now in his 40s—found that he was in charge of the Napa State Hospital, a facility for sex offenders. Foulk was fired, lost his nursing license, and remained in custody on $3.5 million bail after the arrest.