Foley Back From Rehab; Florida Considering Charges

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March 28, 2007 5:00 AM

Florida law enforcement officials are building a possible criminal case against disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley, R-Fla., based on sexually explicit instant messages that were sent from Pensacola, Fla., to an underage high school student, thereby falling under the state's tough law on Internet sexual predators, ABC News has learned.

"It's a broad statute, and it encompasses a lot of activity," said Maureen Horkan, the director of the Child Predator CyberCrime Unit in the Florida Attorney General's office.

Foley has begun to re-emerge publicly in Palm Beach, Fla., after spending weeks at an Arizona rehabilitation center for what his lawyer described as issues involving substance and his own alleged sexual abuse as a minor.

He was seen last week bicycling along South Ocean Boulevard wearing a helmet and bike racing outfit.

Unlike federal law, the Florida statute makes it a crime simply to use lewd or explicit language "that is harmful to minors."

Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.

In several of the Foley messages, reviewed by ABC News, the former congressman urges or describes certain sexual acts.

"How my favorite young stud doing," Foley, using the screen name Maf54, asks at the beginning of the exchange.

"Did any girl give you a hand job this weekend," Maf54 asks a few minutes later.

The 17-year-old boy responds, "lol no."

"Good so your getting horny," Maf54 says, adding later, "i am hard as a rock...so tell me when your reaches rock." 

Later, Maf54 writes, "um so a big buldge [sic]."  "Love to slip them off of you and gram [sic] the one eyed snake."  "get a ruler and measure it for me."

"I can't say specifically what the outcome of that particular case would be, but I can say that having looked at that language, there are elements of that language that would certainly qualify it, if a jury were to believe that, it would be criminal," said Horkan who has reviewed the messages.

"If the child listens and complies and follows someone else's instruction, even though they are in totally separate places, that crime has been committed," said Horkan.

She says her unit has prosecuted a number of such cases.

Federal law enforcement officials say they have had difficulty bringing charges against Foley because they have not been able to prove actual sexual contact with a minor, as required under federal law. Washington, D.C. law defines the age of consent as 16.

Since the messages were first revealed by the Blotter on ABCNews.com last September, leading to his resignation, Foley has consistently denied sexual contact with any of the underage former congressional pages with whom he exchanged explicit language about sex acts.

Officials say the text in the Foley instant messages make it clear he was in Florida and knew he was dealing with someone under the age of 18.

People familiar with the case said one instant message in particular, from Pensacola, could serve as the foundation of the case because it would allow charges to be brought in a county far from Foley's Palm Beach, where he was a popular figure.

Law enforcement officials say any decision to bring charges is still a month or two off and also depends on testimony from the former pages who received Foley's messages.

Stephen Jones, a lawyer for one of the former pages, says his client has been questioned extensively by Florida state agents.