posted May 18, 2007 11:27 PM              

A former South Dakota lawmaker is accused of molesting his own foster children and legislative pages.

Ted Klaudt, 49, a Republican rancher from Walker, faces a long list of charges: eight counts of rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of witness tampering, sexual contact with a person under 16, and stalking.

Court documents mention five possible victims. Three were foster children between the ages of 15 and 19 who lived with Klaudt's family. One is a cousin of one of those girls, and the fifth is a friend of Klaudt's daughter.

In the most disturbing accusation, the girls say Klaudt had them convinced they could earn up to $20,000 by donating their eggs to a fertility clinic. And even though he has no medical training, the girls say Klaudt did all the supposed "exams" and "procedures" himself.

Former State Representative Ted Klaudt is accused of manipulating, molesting, intimidating and threatening teenage girls who the state of South Dakota paid him to raise.

Lou Raguse: Ted what do you have to say about these charges?
Klaudt: No comment.
Lou: All your voters over the years? What do you want them to know?
Klaudt: (no response)

The first victim to come forward told investigators Klaudt offered to earn her enough money to pay for college by helping her donate her eggs to a fertility clinic. She says Klaudt used a fake email address from the supposed clinic agent to trick her into letting him perform what's supposed to be a surgical procedure.

The victims say Klaudt touched them while they were foster children at his home here in Walker. But the girls say the molestation also happened in Pierre during legislative sessions while some of them also served as pages.

Five different girls now say Klaudt did things ranging from manual "breast exams" to the painful procedure of actually going inside of them with a speculum and collecting body fluids. The girls say when they cried, Klaudt gave them a beer and told them to toughen up.

Lou: Ted, do you deny the accusations?
Klaudt: (no response)

He's not telling us anything. But when investigators questioned him in February. He admitted to much of what the girls allege, including sending messages from the fake email account. Klaudt told investigators the girls asked him to help them donate the eggs. But he admits never sending off a specimen.

Inside his home, investigators found Klaudt's briefcase filled with all the tools the girls say he used in his supposed "exams."

The charges reflect alleged crimes against two of the five girls. The most serious of the crimes, 2nd degree rape, carries up to 50 years in prison.

~~~~
Then there's this guy who made a video game about the Virginia shootings because he could relate to the shooter.
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Internet_game_of_Virginia_massacre__05162007.html

An Australian man has sparked a storm of protest after creating an online computer game based on the murderous shooting spree at Virginia Tech in the United States last month.

Players control an image of Korean-born gunman Cho Seung-hui, who killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself, and screams can be heard on the soundtrack as shots are fired at the other characters.

The creator of "V-Tech Rampage", 21-year-old Ryan Lambourn, said he made the game "because it's funny," the Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday.

The unemployed Lambourn responded to outraged calls for him to remove the game from the Internet by demanding 1,000 US dollars for each of the two sites it is on and said that for another 1,000 dollars he would apologise.

But he said later that was a joke to "make more people angry" and he would not remove the game from his own website or seek to have it removed from amateur game sharing site Newgrounds.com.

The game, described as offering "three levels of stealth and murder" is set on a facsimile of the Virginia Tech campus and can be freely downloaded from either site.

"I've done offensive things before but they're not usually this popular," he said.

Lambourn said that while he had sympathy for those who had lost friends and relatives in the massacre, he also had sympathy for the gunman.

"No one listens to you unless you've got something sensational to do. And that's why I feel sympathy for Cho Seung-Hui. He had to go that far."

Lambourn told the national AAP news agency that he would not take down the game under any circumstances, even if he received a request from the victims' families.

"I'm afraid not," he said, but added: "I hope they'd never do that."

He said he empathised with the killer and that he, like Cho, had been a victim of abuse and bullying at high school.

Lambourn was born in Australia but grew up in the United States before returning to Australia when he was 14.

He said he left school in the eighth grade having been bullied and abused at several institutions in Texas, Maine, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.

He described himself as a self-taught animator supported financially by his mother, who still lives in the United States.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why are there so many disturbed people these days? Are there really more than there used to be, or is it that we hear about it more now than we used to? What the bleep is wrong with people?

posted May 19, 2007 12:51 AM              

There was another one lately on CNN news about man in Korea who raped his young daughter, video taped it and put the tape on the internet.

I don't know all the details of that story. My husband told me about it and I did not want to hear all the details.

posted May 19, 2007 02:35 AM            

The guy that posted the rape of his daughter fled to China and is fighting extradition. He is from Washington State and sadly, the video was one of the most widely downloaded child porn tapes in the world.

This stuff makes me so angry!

posted May 19, 2007 08:37 AM              

The guy with the foster daughter. She obviously had had a hard life to begin with, as she was in the foster care system. I read part of the affidavit(it's on the site I posted) and he forced her to have a drink when he would do this to her so that she would "relax" so that he could properly "collect her eggs" He was telling her that someone wanted her to sell her eggs, and that way she could make enough money to pay him off for some money she (the girl) owed him. This first started when she was 15 I think.

Is it like a switch that flips at some poiint in development that people turn into predators? Is it a culmulative effect? Is it biological, social, environmental? What happens to someone to make them do such a thing?

Things like this make me angry, and sad.

posted May 19, 2007 03:54 PM              

Guess it shows how very many freakazoids there are running around out there in the world.

It's as you said, Pid. If the penalties were more strict for these abuses on children there might be much less of it. The laws and courts being so lenient about it is what makes the world so unsafe for our children.

Is the guy an American who was in Korea at the time this happened or was that original report incorrect? If the crime happened in Korea hopefully they have tougher penalties for it than in the U.S. and this slimeball gets put away for life in a dark hole somewhere. Sorry, but some things are just too evil to find compassion or forgiveness.

posted May 19, 2007 04:51 PM            

I think you are referring to this guy:

Molester suspect caught in Hong Kong
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 3, 2007

One of the nation's most notorious accused child molesters was arrested this week on his arrival in Hong Kong by government officials in the People's Republic of China, the U.S. Marshals Service said yesterday.
Kenneth J. Freeman, 44, a former police officer in Washington state who has been a fugitive for more than a year, had been on the Marshals Service "15 Most Wanted" list and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "Most Wanted Fugitives" listing since 2005.
He is accused of molesting his daughter, 11, then posting videos of the abuse online.
Freeman was taken into custody at the request of U.S. authorities after information was developed last month by the Marshals Service and ICE that he intended to travel to Hong Kong to work for a U.S.-based company.
A task force of agents from the Marshals Service, ICE, the Benton County, Wash., Sheriff's Office and agents from State Department's Diplomatic Security Service had been tracking his whereabouts since 2005.
Although the People's Republic of China and the United States have no extradition treaty, the Chinese government agreed to help when it was informed about Freeman, the Marshals Service said. A provisional arrest warrant was obtained in Hong Kong, where an extradition treaty still exists with the U.S.
Freeman was charged with child rape in Washington state and released on bail in December 2005. He fled the country after federal charges were filed in early 2006.
Authorities said Internet scenes showing the girl being raped by her father became one of the most widely downloaded child pornography videos in recent years.
An avid competitive bodybuilder and computer specialist, Freeman worked as a reserve sheriff's deputy in Benton County, Wash. Since 2006, authorities said, a series of charges against him by federal and local courts has made him the subject of a worldwide manhunt.
According to the Marshals Service, which coordinates national efforts to capture unregistered sex offenders and people charged with child abuse, Freeman's arrest was not without incident, saying he attempted to flee and injured four officers in the process.
Last month, David Leroy Knellinger Sr., 59, of Richmond, pleaded guilty in federal court in Virginia to receipt of child pornography, admitting before U.S. District Court Robert E. Payne to using IMesh, a peer-to-peer software program, to obtain videos depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct -- including those of Freeman's daughter.
Knellinger faces five to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and supervised release for any term of years up to the remainder of his life. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 17.
ICE spokeswoman Kadia H. Koroma said law-enforcement authorities went public with their search after Freeman was featured on television's "America's Most Wanted."
When the Freeman case received national publicity, Ms. Koroma said, calls to the center linked the girl on "America's Most Wanted" to the unidentified child in the video series.

_______________________________________

It made big news out here since it comes on the heels of another brutal child molestation case that crossed over Washington, Idaho and Montana.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/joseph_duncan/10.html

The psychopath, Duncan, had abducted a young brother and sister from their house. He killed their mother, father and older brother. He later murdered the boy after repeated raping him and his sister.

To add insult to injury, the idiot was a CONVICTED child molester that had a history of this kind of sexual abuse. When he was 15 he raped an 8 year old boy at gun point, he admitted to raping more than 13 young boys before the age of 16 and was sentanced in 1980 for raping another 14 year old boy.

He was paroled and told not to have contact with any minors and then he returned to Seattle. After that he had violated his parole by having a firearm, getting caught with pot and was suspected in the disappearances of several young children that had later turned up sexually abused and murdered.

When I lived in California, we had a case of a young boy, Anthony Martinez, that was abducted in front of his house during the day in April of 1997. It was in Riverside County and really shook So. Cal. They later found his body in the desert. There were billboards everywhere looking for his killer. My mom reminded me of when I said "Yes, they will find the killer, because he will kill again and they will finally get his fingerprints".

At that time they didn't have AFIS, a national fingerprint data base. He wasn't so lucky when he finally got caught in Idaho. They traced his fingerprints to to prints on the duct taped found on the body of little Anthony Martinez.

This guy had been raping and killing young children from the time he was 15 years old.

Our judicial system let him go again and again- he only served 3 more years after his repeated parole violations.

He never stopped his predatory behaviour- until now. I doubt he will ever see the light of day this go round.