Fla. Opens Criminal Probe Of Foley Notes

Ex-Rep. Resigned In September After Sexually Explicit Messages To Former Pages Were Revealed

(AP)  Florida authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the sexually explicit computer messages that disgraced lawmaker Mark Foley sent to male former interns.

"It was a preliminary inquiry before, but we found the basis to open up a criminal investigation," Kristen Perezluha, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said Thursday. She would not elaborate.

The FBI is investigating whether Foley broke federal laws with his messages to teenaged former congressional pages, and the House Ethics Committee is looking into whether senior Republican officials hid what they knew about the messages.

Foley resigned Sept. 29 after being confronted with the lurid messages. His attorney, David Roth, has said Foley never had inappropriate sexual contact with minors. He declined to comment Thursday on the criminal investigation.

Florida law prohibits seducing or attempting to seduce a minor. However, authorities have said the term "seduce" is open to interpretation.

Foley has returned to Florida to attend his father's funeral, set for Saturday, after spending more than a month in an Arizona rehabilitation facility for alcoholism, Roth said. Edward Foley died Tuesday of cancer.

Foley entered the treatment facility Oct. 1, shortly before his attorneys announced he was gay, an alcoholic and that he had been molested by a priest as a teenage altar boy in Florida.

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, who has retired to the island nation of Malta, has admitted having inappropriate encounters with Foley, including massaging him in the nude and skinny-dipping together. He denies having sex with Foley.

Foley has not been seen publicly since shortly after his resignation.

[radiob-2009]

If they find him guilty I hope that he does not get to go to a white collar minimium security prison and that his congressional pension is taken away.Crooks of any nature which serve the public should not be allowed to receive a pension from the public as they have violated the publics trust regardless of political affilation.

I'm sure before long we would have seen his face on Dateline "To catch a Predator" And to question whether he broke laws is ludacris. Of course he did.

[flolake]

Intent, intent and more intent...

[henren]

I think the next child protection legislation to become law should be named the "Foley Law". Let's brand this pretender, make an example of him, and let his face and name be synonymous with the day that we as a society said %u201Cleave our children alone!%u201D and %u201Cpeople in leadership positions are held to the highest standards and harshest penalties%u201D.

[rharrin1]

Hastert was and still points at ABC and democrats over the foley deal.
I think the best thing hastert could do,when he wants to point his finger is to go get a mirror because if you did what you should have done nobody would have had anything to say.
You are just as guilty as foley.

[agnim]

It's about time!

It's obvious to everyone that this deviant filth-stirring pervert, who brought shame and disgrace to the nation's leadership, was soliciting deviant '***' from a MINOR, and from one of the same *** at that.

And the filth-stirring Foley was also guilty of SEXUAL HARASSMENT on the job!

Only the devil knows why it has taken the authorities so long to persecute and prosecute this deviant and make an example of him to the other bad examples in 'leadership' positions.

That little filth-stirrer, Barney Frank, should be next!