[A] longtime Vermont foster parent has been arrested for sexual assault against a juvenile victim.
Keith LaFlam, 59, of Milton, was charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered Tuesday to be held without bail in St. Albans.
On May 7, the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations was contacted by the state Department for Children and Families regarding a report of LaFlam sexually assaulting a minor.
In an affidavit filed in the case Tuesday, Detective Elizabeth Felicciardi said a 15-year-old girl saw LaFlam outside her school in a cab and remarked to a staff member that he was a sex offender. When her current foster mother asked why she said that, the girl said LaFlam sexually abused her two years earlier when she was living in a home with him.
The girl said the abuse happened on two occasions when she was in LaFlam’s room to get her medication. Her current foster mother reported the incident to DCF.
The girl told Felicciardi that LaFlam instructed her not to tell anyone, saying it was “their little secret.”
On Monday, investigators interviewed LaFlam in South Burlington, where he works as a taxi driver. He is also currently employed at a group home for adolescents.
In the interview, LaFlam claimed the child had initiated contact but later admitted he had touched the girl.
“LaFlam said multiple times during the interview that he was the victim and that she essentially forced herself upon him, and would come up from behind him and take his hands and touch her breasts and vagina,” the affidavit notes.
LaFlam called the victim a “big liar,” according to the affidavit. He was arrested immediately after the interview.
LaFlam has worked with children for 32 years. He was licensed as a DCF foster parent from 1994 until 1997. He then became a Northeastern Family Institute foster parent from 1997 until 2007. And in 2012, he was approved as a foster parent for a Howard Center home until 2017. He also worked at the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Colchester.
If convicted, LaFlam faces a minimum three-year sentence for each sexual assault charge, with a maximum of life in prison and a $25,000 fine. He also faces a minimum of two years and maximum of 15 years in prison and $5,000 for the charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child.
