HiddenMysteries: Florida may file charges against Mark Foley

By AMIE PARNES

Florida authorities are considering whether to charge Mark Foley as an Internet sex predator as a result of lurid online messages he sent a male teenager from a hotel room in Pensacola, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Foley, then 52, was campaigning for a Senate seat in 2003 when he sent the high school student and former congressional page a string of online messages describing sexual acts, a clear violation of Florida's law on Internet sex predators.

"This type of activity would fall under Florida law's criminal statute," said Maureen Horkan, the director of the Child Predator Cybercrime Unit in the Florida Attorney General's office. The law states that "any person who knowingly utilizes a computer online service or Internet service to seduce, solicit, lure, entice or attempt to seduce a child" would be committing a third degree felony and could receive a jail sentence of up to five years.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials on Wednesday described their Foley investigation as "still ongoing" and said it is still weeks, if not months, away from being concluded. "We are still conducting an active and ongoing investigation into the matter and continue to work with the Florida Attorney General's office Cybercrime Unit," said Kristen Perezluha, a spokeswoman with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Meanwhile, FBI officials said they are still in the process of conducting a preliminary investigation into the matter. "Nothing has changed," said Debbie Weirman, an FBI spokeswoman. "We are still working with Florida authorities. It is still a preliminary investigation."

In an interview Wednesday, Stephen Jones, a lawyer for one of the underage pages at the center of the controversy, said his client has not been questioned by authorities since October. "Nothing has occurred this year," Jones said. "(State and federal) authorities have not contacted us recently."

Foley resigned from Congress in late September after reports surfaced he had exchanged a series of sexually explicit online messages with teens. Since then, his lawyer, David Roth, has said that "any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false." After leaving an Arizona rehabilitation center in November, where he was treated for alcohol and behavioral issues, Foley spent time in Los Angeles where he stayed with one of his sisters while undergoing additional treatment at an outpatient facility. Earlier this year, he sold his Washington home and is once again living in Florida.

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Florida may file charges against Mark Foley - a BUSH GOP Khristian

Friday, March 30 2007 @ 01:20 AM CDT