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Blog Entry from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Mark Foley still facing criminal charges

The Washington Blade provides an update on former Rep. Mark Foley.  Criminal charges are apparently under active consideration: 

The Florida Attorney General’s office and the FBI continue to mull over whether to charge former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) with a crime for sending sexually explicit messages to teenage former pages.

Six months after Foley resigned his House seat, Florida’s Child Predator Cybercrime Unit is investigating the disgraced former congressman for possible violation of a state law that prohibits the sexual solicitation or seduction of a juvenile by an adult over the Internet.

A spokesperson for the cyber unit said investigators are looking into online messages that Foley sent to a male teenager and former House page from a hotel room in Pensacola, Fla., where Foley was staying during a trip in 2003.

Foley’s online communication from Florida with at least one former page under age 18 opened the way for Florida authorities to get involved in a probe that began in Washington last October with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

“We are still conducting an active investigation into the matter and continue to work with the Florida Attorney General’s Cypercrime Unit,” said Kristen Perezluha, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

FBI spokesperson Debbie Weirman said the FBI is still conducting its own “preliminary investigation” into Foley’s actions, which it also began last October.

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