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FLORIDA - Six months after resigning from Congress, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley remains under criminal investigation for sexually explicit Internet communications with underage boys but has not been charged, authorities said Wednesday.
"I can't really give any more detail other than to say we're still in the preliminary investigative stance and we are working with state authorities," said Debra Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office.
Florida authorities announced their own criminal investigation in November but have remained tightlipped on the status since then.
Foley resigned Sept. 29 after being confronted with the lurid messages to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill.
He checked himself into an Arizona facility on Oct. 1 for what his attorneys said was treatment of "alcoholism and other behavioral problems." At the time, his attorney said Foley was gay, an alcoholic and had been molested by a priest as a teenage altar boy in Florida.
Attorney David Roth maintains Foley never had inappropriate sexual contact with the minors. He has declined further comment on any aspect of the case.
Federal law generally requires a person to meet or attempt to meet a minor for sex for it to be a crime. However, under laws in some states where the Florida Republican communicated with minors, an attempt to seduce the victim might be enough for a criminal case.
Under state law in Florida, where the age of consent is 18, a crime may have been committed if Foley is simply found to have seduced or attempted to seduce a minor using lewd or explicit language.
"It's definitely still an active investigation," Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Kristen Perezluha said Wednesday.
Foley emerged publicly in West Palm Beach on Nov. 17 to attend a wake for his father, Edward, who died of cancer, but has rarely been seen in public since.
from The Associated Press
The video game maker that sparked uproar over a hidden sex scene in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" is courting new controversy with its latest schoolyard title "Bully"--featuring boys kissing.
That sexual twist came to light only after Take-Two Interactive Software released the "Teen"-rated game on Oct. 17, having weathered protests from antiviolence advocates who tried unsuccessfully to block its sale to minors.
"Bully" stars 15-year-old Jimmy Hopkins, who must navigate cliques, fights and young love at his new boarding school, along the way winning brawls, completing missions and plying girls with candy and flowers in exchange for kisses.
But Jimmy can also use the same approach with boys. When Jimmy approaches a tall, blond boy with some flowers, the boy replies, "I'm hot. You're hot. Let's make out."
Gay video game enthusiasts have embraced "Bully," which was was the U.S.'s third top-selling game in the week ending Oct. 27, according to figures from UBS.
"Progress!" wrote one reader of Gaygamer.net, who applauded the move by Take-Two's Rockstar Games studio. "Hot Gay Coffee," quipped another on the same site, referring to the controversial "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" sex scene that was dubbed "Hot Coffee."
Others, however, were not so enthusiastic.
"I can't have my kids playing this game. This is morally reprehensible. GTA (Grand Theft Auto) is a real man's game, Bully is a disgrace," wrote a poster using the handle spideRRR on GameSpot.com (which is owned by CNET Networks, publisher of CNET News.com).
Risky move by Take-Two?
The inclusion of the explicit sex scene in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" also had some parents, along with regulators and lawmakers, fuming.
Take-Two was forced to pull that game from store shelves at the cost of millions of dollars to the company because it had not disclosed the existence of the scene.
The "Grand Theft Auto" series has reaped revenue in excess of $1.5 billion, around 30 percent of Take-Two's sales in the period since the first game's debut in 2001, said Michael Pachter, a video game analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities.
In "Bully," the controversial scene was not hidden, but it also was not advertised to consumers.
The video game industry rating board considered the boy-kissing-boy scenes in "Bully" before assigning it a "Teen" rating, spokesman Eliot Mizrachi said.
A spokesman for Rockstar declined comment.
Brenda Brathwaite, a professor at Savannah College of Art & Design and author of "Sex in Video Games," said gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgendered characters are "more and more the norm" on television and that Rockstar is in the vanguard of game makers to include this type of content.
Most video games target a young male audience and focus on shooting, racing or sports. Same-sex displays of affection are largely unexplored, although they are possible in Electronic Arts' popular "Sims" titles and in online games like "Second Life."
"It's symbolic that the diversity that's appearing in broader media is making its way to games in a way that's not insulting or necessarily sensationalistic," said Brathwaite.
But Pachter, the analyst, said considering the baggage Take-Two brings to the table after "San Andreas," introducing a homosexual aspect to "Bully" was an unnecessary risk for the company to take.
"It doesn't glorify anything...Do I think that many parents would have a problem with their kids seeing it? Yes."
from ZD Net
MIAMI, FLORIDA - Another former altar boy says he was sexually abused in the 1970s by the same retired Catholic priest who acknowledged fondling former Rep. Mark Foley when Foley was a teenager, the man's attorney said Wednesday.
The new allegations against the Rev. Anthony Mercieca were made by a man who lived in North Miami and was an altar boy at St. James Catholic Church, where Mercieca worked, attorney Jeffrey Herman said.
Herman said he planned to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the Archdiocese of Miami. His client, now 40 and identified in the lawsuit only as John Doe No. 26, says Mercieca abused him when he was about 12 years old.
"He had been thinking about it before Foley came forward, and then when Foley came out and the church encouraged other victims to come forward, he decided to come forward," Herman said.
The man said "all of my nightmares came back" when Mercieca's picture appeared on the news last week amid Foley's claims that the priest had molested him. Foley had resigned amid accusations that he sent sexually explicit messages to teenage boys who had worked on Capitol Hill.
Mercieca, 69, now lives on the Maltese island of Gozo in the Mediterranean. No one answered the phone at his home Wednesday. His lawyer, Alfred Grech, did not return calls to his cell phone.
Archdiocese of Miami spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta, asked about the latest allegations, said: "Any of this type of behavior by Father Mercieca was unknown to the archdiocese and we had absolutely no information to indicate that the father did or would engage in any type of inappropriate or abusive behavior."
The Miami Archdiocese barred Mercieca from all church work as it investigates Foley's claim that the clergyman molested him when Foley was an altar boy at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967.
Mercieca is now retired and does not serve in any parish, but he regularly celebrates Mass and hears confession in the cathedral on Gozo, according to the Archdiocese of Malta.
In multiple interviews last week, Mercieca denied having sexual intercourse with Foley, but he did acknowledge being nude with him when Foley was a boy.
Mercieca also denied having sex with any underage children.
Herman said his client and Mercieca took a bicycle ride together one day after altar boy practice and then returned to the church where the abuse occurred.
"It was fondling and he performed oral sex on the boy," Herman said. "He attempted on another occasion following altar boy practice, but the boy declined to go on this bike ride and he never went back to the church after that."
Mercieca served as an assistant pastor at the church from 1975 to 1985, according to church records.
Foley resigned from Congress last month after he was confronted with sexually explicit computer communications he had sent to male teenage pages who worked on Capitol Hill. He has since entered a 30-day rehabilitation program for alcoholism at the Sierra Tucson treatment center in Catalina, Ariz., near Tucson, according to his attorneys.
from The San Jose Mercury News
The Archdiocese of Miami on Friday barred the Rev. Anthony Mercieca from functioning as a priest anywhere in the world after confirming that he was the clergyman who Mark Foley said molested him in the 1960’s.
Father Mercieca, who now lives in Malta, can no longer publicly celebrate Mass, administer the sacraments or wear priestly clothes, said Mary Ross Agosta, a diocesan spokeswoman.
Ms. Agosta apologized to Mr. Foley in a statement and described as repugnant Father Mercieca’s intimate contact with him, which the priest disclosed to a Florida newspaper this week. Father Mercieca, 69, worked in South Florida for almost 40 years and remains under the auspices of the archdiocese.
“Such behavior is morally reprehensible, canonically criminal and inexcusable,” Ms. Agosta said.
Mr. Foley, 52, resigned from the House of Representatives last month after the release of sexually explicit messages he had sent to teenage Congressional pages. Soon after, his lawyer announced that Mr. Foley is gay, had gone into treatment for alcoholism and had been molested by a clergyman when he was 13 to 15.
“An apology is due to Mr. Foley for the hurt he has experienced,” Ms. Agosta said.
So far, she said, no one else had reported sexual misconduct by Father Mercieca. He worked in at least eight parishes in South Florida since 1966, most recently at Blessed Trinity Catholic Church in Miami Springs from 1993 to 2003. Ms. Agosta said he left Florida to retire.
“There were absolutely no other problems,” she said in an interview.
Ms. Agosta said the Archdiocese of Miami had begun an internal investigation that could result in further sanctions against Father Mercieca. A spokesman for the archbishop of Malta said an investigation was under way there, too.
Though retired, Father Mercieca was still saying Mass every morning at a cathedral on Gozo, the Maltese island where he was raised and now lives with his brother, also a priest.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group, said that both diocesan actions were insufficient and that Father Mercieca should be put in a secure treatment facility while the police investigated.
The Herald-Tribune of Sarasota, Fla., reported Thursday that Father Mercieca said he had skinny-dipped and lounged naked in saunas with the young Mr. Foley, massaged him and roomed with him naked on overnight trips. He said that once, on tranquilizers, he might have gone further with Mr. Foley but could not recall details.
Father Mercieca repeated the claims in interviews with other news outlets, but also said his relationship with Mr. Foley was not sexual.
The survivors group has urged Mr. Foley to press charges, but the statute of limitations has probably expired. His civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said Friday that he had no idea whether Mr. Foley would pursue the matter.
Mr. Richman identified Father Mercieca to Palm Beach County prosecutors this week as Mr. Foley’s molester. Prosecutors shared the information with the archdiocese, but said they would do nothing more unless other victims emerged.
Ms. Agosta said the archdiocese, which includes Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties, would encourage any other victims to come forward by asking every parish to make an announcement about Father Mercieca.
from The Amherst Times
SARASOTA, FLORIDA - A Roman Catholic priest said he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with former Rep. Mark Foley in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically remember having sex, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. They include massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips.
Mercieca said there was one night when he was in a drug-induced stupor and there was an incident but he couldn't clearly remember, the newspaper reported.
"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," the newspaper reported Mercieca as saying from his home on the island of Gozo, south of Italy. "I was taking pills tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit."
Mercieca could not immediately be located for comment Thursday by The Associated Press.
Foley resigned from Congress last month after his sexually explicit e-mails to young male pages surfaced.
His lawyer said shortly after his resignation that Foley was an alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a "clergyman." Foley's civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he shared with state prosecutors on Wednesday.
Richman did not return phone messaged left Thursday by The Associated Press. Foley's criminal defense lawyer David Roth declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Roth said: "Mark does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate" e-mails and instant messages. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct."
Mercieca had worked at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967, according to church records. Foley would have been 13 at the time.
The state attorney's office in West Palm Beach did not immediately return a telephone message Thursday. A phone for the Archdiocese of Miami wasn't accepting new messages because its voice mail box was full.
Mercieca, 72, said he and Foley became fast friends when he moved to Florida from Brazil and "loved each other like brothers," the newspaper reported.
Mercieca said he taught Foley "some wrong things" related to sex, though he wouldn't specify what he meant, the newspaper said. It reported the priest said that at the time, he considered the relationship innocent, but he now says he could see how his actions could be called inappropriate.
Mercieca said although Foley plans to "expose him to the world," he still has "great memories of our trips," the newspaper reported.
"I wish him well," Mercieca said. "Let bygones be bygones."
Mercieca was adamant that his encounter with Foley was an aberration, and that the Catholic Church never had to send him for counseling during his 38 years in the priesthood in Florida, according to the newspaper.
"I have been in many parishes, and I have never been" accused, he said.
A Web site for the Diocese of Gozo lists Mercieca as one of its priests. Joseph Calleja, a priest with the diocese, said Mercieca is still an active priest but that he lives at his own home. Gozo, a Mediterranean island, is part of the Republic of Malta.
from ABC News
SYDNEY AUSTRALIA - A police officer convicted of enticing a 14-year-old boy to expose himself at a Sydney mall was today sentenced to four months' imprisonment.
Adam Teofilo, 32, lodged an appeal and was granted bail on condition he surrender his passport, not approach ports or crown witnesses. His appeal will be heard on November 9.
He was off duty when he struck up a conversation with two 14-year-old boys near the Warringah Mall post office.
The boys, who cannot be named, said the conversation on January 18 quickly turned to talk of sex when Teofilo, a member of the northern beaches bike squad, asked the boys how big their penises were.
He then allegedly asked one of the boys to "prove it" and expose himself, insisting it was OK because he was not gay.
"I just want you to show me, get in the corner and show me ... show me now," Teofilo allegedly said to the boy.
In a videotaped interview, the boy later told police: "He was yelling at me. If I had not done it he would have done something to me. I was really scared."
The boy said he exposed himself "for a second", then Teofilo instructed him to masturbate, but the boy refused. "I felt so awkward. I felt really uncomfortable," the boy said.
The boy said the man did not insist, but offered the two a lift in his car. They followed him to identify his car, then told him they still had to buy a present, but would be back. Instead they ran off to alert security.
Teofilo was convicted in August of enticing a 14-year-old boy to commit an act of indecency and behaving in an offensive manner.
He has always maintained his innocence.
Today at the Downing Centre Local Court, Magistrate Christopher Longley sentenced Teofilo - who has been suspended from the NSW Police - to four months' imprisonment for the enticement charge and one month's imprisonment for behaving in an offensive manner, both to be served concurrently.
Teofilo was suspended without pay and served with a 181(d) notice, which meant he had lost the confidence of Police Commissioner Ken Moroney, a police spokeswoman said.
Officers issued with a 181(d) notice had the right to respond, or could waive that right, after which the commissioner would determine their future in the force, she said.
from The Sydney Morning Herald
Let's deal with the circumstance that dare not speak its name: How much of the Mark Foley scandal's impact is due to the fact that he's a gay man who preyed on young boys?
The basic story line — powerful man exploits children — would be the same if Foley were straight and underage girls had been the subject of his lurid attentions. But would the intensity of the scandal be the same? Would there be all this unseemly finger-pointing and hand-washing among the House leadership? Would Dennis Hastert be fighting to keep his job, would Christian conservatives be so apoplectic, would the whole Republican Party look as if it were on the verge of a nervous breakdown?
I doubt it. There would still be a scandal, but I think Foley's now-acknowledged homosexuality was crucial in turning a crisis for the party into a potential catastrophe. In a perfect world that wouldn't be the case, but you might have noticed there's not a lot of perfection in Washington these days.
It's tempting to put it all down to hypocrisy. The Republican Party has gone to such lengths to demonize homosexuality that it must pain the leadership to reveal that such a thing as a gay Republican congressman could even exist. The party has stigmatized gay people as "them," not "us" — as a class of people whose "lifestyle" is unsavory and whose committed relationships must never be recognized, lest the republic instantly crumble to dust.
There had been warning signs about Foley's enthusiastic interest in young male pages for years, and the House leadership's inaction is just about impossible to explain — either they ignored the situation, which would be an act of stunning cynicism, or they genuinely didn't know about it, which would suggest woeful incompetence. Not an attractive choice of stories to tell for a party that preaches so much about moral standards and personal responsibility.
Still, I don't think hypocrisy alone is enough to explain why the Foley mess is such a big deal. I think it goes deeper.
One of the central tenets of anti-homosexual doctrine is the notion of "recruitment" — that adult gay people lure young people into homosexuality as a way of increasing their numbers. The most extreme anti-gay activists perceive a full-fledged conspiracy. The Traditional Values Coalition, a group whose homophobia can only be called rabid, goes so far as to claim that after being enticed into sexual acts, the "young 'initiates' into the strange world of homosexuality are to be trained to reject the moral beliefs of their parents."
This is complete bunk, of course — most new research has tended to support the idea that homosexuality is more a matter of nature than nurture, and in any event the notion of an organized "recruitment" drive is far beyond ridiculous.
There are people, though, who are not consciously bigoted against gay people but who find homosexuality difficult to comprehend. There aren't many things more primal and specific, after all, than an individual's sexual desires. For some people who have no base of knowledge about gayness — and, often, whose pastors routinely denounce homosexuality from the pulpit as a sin — the basic idea of recruitment, without all the paranoid conspiracy trappings, seems to explain the inexplicable.
Foley's lawyer explained the former congressman's behavior by saying that Foley was drunk and, by the way, had been molested by a clergyman when he was a child. Was he laying the foundation for a possible legal defense? Or does Mark Foley, until last week still closeted at age 52, actually believe that's why he's gay?
In any event, the recruitment myth helps explain why social conservatives, who make up perhaps the most loyal and energetic segment of the Republican Party's base, are so up in arms. And that outrage, in turn, helps explain why the party has been so frantic all week, so uncharacteristically slow to come up with a game plan for responding to the scandal. Social conservatives were already grumbling that the Republicans talk a good game but never get around to addressing their core issues. Now comes this.
In pre-feminist times, people thought of young girls as particularly delicate and vulnerable. We worried about their being compromised or corrupted by older men. It's fascinating that much of today's America seems to be more viscerally worried about young boys.
The Decatur Daily / Eugene Robinson
