Ex-lawmaker who molested foster daughters now being sued

Associated Press

Last update: March 12, 2008 - 11:35 AM

A North Dakota woman is suing her former foster father, a onetime South Dakota legislator who is serving more than 50 years in state prison for raping her and a fellow foster daughter by assaulting them in phony examinations he said would help them sell their reproductive eggs.

The suit, seeking more than $75,000 in damages and filed this week in federal court, names Ted Klaudt as a defendant, along with his wife Connie. She is accused of negligence in the case.

Ted Klaudt was convicted on four counts of second-degree rape involving the two children at his hotel suite during the 2005 and 2006 legislative sessions in Pierre. Klaudt then pleaded guilty to two counts of witness tampering to avoid a second trial on charges he raped the same girls in his home in Walker, S.D.

He is serving a 54-year state prison sentence. Klaudt's lawyer said at the time of sentencing that such a lengthy term likely means Klaudt, who weighs more than 600 pounds and is in poor health, will never make it out of prison alive.

Prosecutors said Klaudt coerced the girls into fake medical examinations under the pretext that he was checking them for possibly donating eggs to infertile couples. Both young women testified that Klaudt penetrated them with his fingers and a sex toy and touched their breasts.

The girls lived in Klaudt's home as part of a program that provides foster care for young people who have no safe home to return to after completing time in juvenile reform programs. One of the girls served as a legislative page.

The girl who sued now lives in Mandan, N.D.

Connie Klaudt, who is accused of not doing enough to protect the girls from her husband's abuse, said Tuesday that she had not been served with the complaint and did not have a lawyer. "I cared for and loved all of my kids, including [the girl], just as if she was my own child. If she had come to me with any problem and told me, I would have taken care of it," she said.

The suit accuses the Klaudts of negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of fiduciary duty. Ted Klaudt also is accused of battery, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and his wife also is accused of negligence.

Klaudt served eight years in the House from 1999-2006 and left because of term limits.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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