PIERRE - Former state Rep. Ted Klaudt was wrong to trick two foster daughters into thinking he could help them make money by selling their reproductive eggs, but his purported medical examinations did not amount to rape, Klaudt's defense lawyer said Tuesday.

The girls allowed Klaudt to conduct the exams and touch them, defense lawyer Tim Rensch told jurors in his opening statement in a trial expected to last more than a week.

"This was not the product of force. This was not the product of coercion," Rensch said. "It's something that was immoral and wrong, but it was not forcible rape."

But Assistant Attorney General Patricia DeVaney said Klaudt, a former Republican lawmaker from Walker, used lies and manipulation to rape the two girls under the pretense that he was determining whether they were healthy enough to sell their eggs to infertile couples.

Klaudt committed second-degree rape when he used coercion to touch the girls' breasts and put his fingers and a vibrator into their vaginas, DeVaney told jurors.

Evidence in the trial will show Klaudt's treatment of teenage girls who lived in his house was a "violation of trust," DeVaney said.

Rensch said Klaudt's deception was not rape because the girls were older than 16, the age of consent, and they agreed to the examinations on the assumption they could make money by donating their eggs.

"I'm not telling you in this case you'll find that what Mr. Klaudt did was honorable, because it was immoral," Rensch told the jury.

Klaudt, a 49-year-old farmer and rancher, is charged with four counts of second-degree rape in Hughes County for offenses that allegedly happened while he was in Pierre during the 2005 and 2006 legislative sessions. Prosecutors said one of the offenses occurred when a foster daughter was a page during a legislative session.

If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on each count.

Klaudt also faces charges of rape, other sex offenses, witness tampering and stalking in Corson County, where he lives. The trial on the Corson County charges is scheduled to begin Nov. 13 in Deadwood.

A law enforcement officer also testified Tuesday about his initial questioning of Klaudt on Feb. 2 in Klaudt's home.

The jury listened to a two-hour recording of the interview, in which Klaudt initially denies conducting any of the exams involved in the egg-donation scheme. By the end of the interview, Klaudt admitted that he had done the tests, touched the girls' breasts and helped obtain vaginal fluid.

Klaudt also acknowledged that he sent one of the girls e-mails from a woman who purportedly worked for an egg-donation organization. The e-mails urged the girl to let Klaudt do the exams, but Klaudt said he created an e-mail account to pose as the woman.

Klaudt denied an agent's suggestion that he had developed a sexual attraction for one of the girls. "I had no sexual feelings" for the girl, he said in the recording.

The case has received extensive publicity, and several prospective jurors were dismissed after saying they had decided Klaudt was guilty based on what they had read in newspapers.

Although that response is not unexpected in such a high-profile case, Klaudt's lawyer was concerned.

"It worries me a little bit that you are starting off by thinking he is guilty," Rensch told a woman who was dismissed for saying she could not set aside her feeling that Klaudt is guilty.

Another woman who was excused from jury service said the graphic sexual details that will be discussed during the trial would make her physically ill.

"I can't believe that this could happen," she said.

DeVaney advised prospective jurors that the testimony and evidence would be "very graphic and sexually explicit."

The jury, plus one alternate, is composed of eight men and five women.

The offenses allegedly occurred over several years when the girls ranged in age from 15 to 19 and were under foster care provided by Klaudt and his wife. The teens were among a number of girls who were sent to 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 South Dakota's juvenile corrections programs.

The girls told law officers that Klaudt touched their breasts and vaginal areas during what he called exams for a scheme to help them sell their eggs for $10,000 or more, according to court documents. He told the girls he had to examine them to determine whether they were suitable egg donors, prosecutors said.

Klaudt was a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee during his eight years in the South Dakota House in 1999-2006. He also was chairman of the Government Operations and Audit Committee, an investigative panel, in his final four years.

Klaudt was term-limited in the House last year and chose to run for the Senate in a sprawling district that covers much of northwestern South Dakota, but he lost to the Democratic candidate.