Former Republican Congress-man Mark Foley's online conversations with teenage male pages have all the trappings of a political scandal, but making a federal case out of the sexually charged exchanges could prove difficult, veteran FBI investigators say.
Foley, a six-term Republican from Florida, resigned abruptly as his e-mails and instant message transcripts surfaced. The chats discussed sexual acts and possible meetings with pages, according to ABC News, which first reported them last week.
With the FBI investigating Foley's behavior, his defense attorney, David Roth, said that the congressman never had sex or attempted sexual contact with a minor. Foley, who is being treated for alcohol abuse, was drinking when he had the explicit conversations, Roth said.
"Any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false," Roth said on Tuesday at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.
If Foley never had sex with a congressional page, then his case is in uncertain legal territory, said Ken Lanning, a retired FBI agent who served as one of the agency's leading experts on child exploitation.
"There are going to be some issues here in the gray area," Lanning said. "You may find this behavior repulsive, offensive or immoral. Whether it's a violation of law will be based on a precise reading of the law."
Congressional leaders, who called for an FBI investigation as Foley resigned, turned to finger-pointing over who knew what about Foley's behavior, when they knew it and whether anything was done to protect the teens.
One federal law enforcement official said the FBI reviewed some Foley-related e-mail in July but concluded that no federal law had been violated. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is active, said agents are reviewing new evidence, including the instant message transcripts, to see if a law was broken.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency is continuing its assessment.
In Florida, Roth said no law enforcement officials had contacted him. Foley has not been subpoenaed but voluntarily agreed not to delete any e-mails or instant messages from his computers, the lawyer said.
Some Democrats have claimed Foley might have violated the federal law used to prosecute Internet sex predators, but experts said it's not that simple.
On the surface, the chat transcripts released by ABC News look much like any of the explicit conversations the FBI has used as evidence in its many Internet sex stings.
In those cases, however, the sexually charged talk led to an arrest when adults arrived for real sexual encounters.
Graphic talk alone is rarely enough, said Joseph Dooley, a former agent who helped set up New England's first FBI unit targeting Internet predators. Many adults engage in explicit chats with undercover agents but never show up for the scheduled meetings, he said.
"We never charged anyone unless they actually traveled to have sex," Dooley said.
Investigators could consider federal obscenity laws, experts said, but the law prohibiting disseminating obscene material to children applies only to those under 16.
Benjamin Vernia, a former federal prosecutor specializing in such cases, compared Foley's online conversations with pages to "grooming," a law enforcement term for the way sexual predators bring along their underage victims. Grooming is a red flag for authorities, Vernia said, but it is rarely enough to bring charges.
The question for federal investigators is whether Foley's online chats ever led to real encounters. One chat transcript suggests Foley and a page had met in San Diego, but the chat does not indicate what took place.
Even if a sexual encounter occurred, however, that will not be enough to lead to charges. It depends on how old the pages were at the time and what the age of consent was in that state.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese