Mark Foley Saga Continues

The Blotter reports Mark Foley will not be prosecuted because the three-year statute of limitations have expired. The law Foley would have been prosecuted under is Florida Statute 847.0135.

(3) CERTAIN USES OF COMPUTER SERVICES PROHIBITED.--Any person who knowingly utilizes a computer on-line service, Internet service, or local bulletin board service to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, or attempt to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, a child or another person believed by the person to be a child, to commit any illegal act described in chapter 794, relating to sexual battery; chapter 800, relating to lewdness and indecent exposure; or chapter 827, relating to child abuse, commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was attempting to prosecute Foley for a 2003 online chat. he corresponded with a 17 year-old male. Foley was in a Pensecola, Florida hotel room during the exchange. The transcript is graphic.

Maf54: did any girl give you a haand job this weekend

Xxxxxxxxx: lol no

Xxxxxxxxx: im single right now

Xxxxxxxxx: my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi

Maf54: are you

Maf54: good so your getting horny

Xxxxxxxxx: lol…a bit

Maf54: did you spank it this weekend yourself

Xxxxxxxxx: no

Xxxxxxxxx: been too tired and too busy

Maf54: wow…

Maf54: i am never to busy haha

The St. Petersburg Times continues to defend sitting on the Foley story.

St. Petersburg Times Executive Editor Neil Brown defended his decision not to run the Foley story after they received "creepy" messages from a Louisiana page in which Foley was seeking a photograph.

"I led deliberations with our top editors, and we concluded that we did not have enough substantiated information to reach beyond innuendo," Brown wrote in an October 2006 editorial. "We couldn't come up with a strong enough case to explain to a teenager's parents why, over their vehement pleas to drop the matter, we needed to make their son the subject of a story - and the incredible scrutiny that would surely follow.

"It added up to this conclusion," Brown added. "To print what we had seemed to be a shortcut to taint a member of Congress without actually having the goods."

Scott Montgomery of The Times gave me this reason for not running the Foley.

Michael,
Adam sent me a copy of your email seeking comment. Here's what I can tell you. As a matter of policy, the St. Petersburg Times doesn't publish stories that make accusations based upon sources we can't name. At the time that we first looked into this, the information we had simply didn't meet our standard. But when Tim Mahoney went on the record on the matter, we felt we should tell readers what we knew.

The Times didn't seen concerned about how the press attention would affect the teenage boy who had sex with Debra Lafave. The email exchange between Foley and the Louisiana teen was the worst kept secret in Washington. The teen told Rep. Rodney Alexander about the online exchange. He told the Congressman, "I still haven’t emailed him back, and I don’t think I will for a while, if ever. What do you think about it all?" The Times could have tried another novel idea. Ask Foley if he sent the email.

The Times did not review their editorial process and publish the findings. That is what the New York Times did after the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller scandals. Instead, they decided to use plausible deniability as a defense. Journalism at it's best is a search for the truth. A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper shouldn't be making statements that would make White House Press Sec. Tony Snow cringe.