Sex offender Claude ‘Ed’ Foulk gets 248 years in prison

A California sex offender is facing serious time behind bars after being found guilty of 31 out of 35 sex crimes.

According to the Press-Telegram, Claude Edward Foulk, 63, was sentenced to 248 years in prison on Wednesday. The sentenced was derived from the judge giving Foulk the maximum allowable of eight years per conviction served consecutively. Judge James Pierce reportedly called Foulk “disgusting,” a “manipulator” and a “worm,” adding that “the court needs to make a statement” with the long prison sentence.

Foulk, a former director of a state mental hospital, was a sexual predator for decades, using “sleepovers, theme park trips and Ferrari rides” to lure young boys, The Daily Beast reports. One of his victims was Jonathan Foulk, who was adopted by the elder Foulk when he was 10 years old. Jonathan was reluctant to help prosecutors at first, but eventually relented and testified against his adoptive father. Jonathan, when hearing the guilty verdict, said he was pleased and added, “This is the final page of this chapter of my life.”

Another of Foulk’s victims, identified as “Donald M.,” was molested by Foulk after being taken in as a foster child. A friend of Donald’s, “Rick W.,” was the one who helped the Long Beach Police Department launch their investigation of Foulk, eventually leading to his arrest.

Rick was also abused by Foulk, and in September, 2009, working as an area director for a healthcare personnel provider, he made a sales call to the hospital where Foulk worked. Spotting Foulk and thinking he looked vaguely familiar, Rick asked a nurse his name:

“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Rick recalls. “I put the Vulcan death grip on my leather steering wheel. The name hit me. I repeated it to myself a couple of times. I got chills down my spine. I said to myself, ‘This is the guy who molested me.’”

It took him some time to work up the courage, but finally Rick told his story to Long Beach Police Department detective Jennifer Kearns after a friend — a Long Beach police officer — encouraged Rick to come forward, asking, “Don’t you want to protect other kids?”