Related: Americans back Dems in Nov. 7 election due to Foley scandal
BEIJING, Oct. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. Florida
Republican Rep. Mark Foley befriended a wide circle of teenagers during their
stints as House pages, then singled out "hot" boys to write to, The Washington
Post reported on Sunday.
The newspaper said it had identified four more former
pages who said they were sexually solicited by Foley, who had resigned since the
scandal broke last month.
Interviews with nearly three dozen former pages
revealed a consistent pattern that the congressman adhered to, the newspaper
said.
He would befriend the teenagers across the board and
his behavior with them would be appropriate without any sexual advances. Shortly
after they left he could contact those he considered to be good prospects over
email. If the initial contact shaped up well and the boys were willing to go
along, over the months the contents of his emails would acquire sexual
overtones.
Illustrating the pattern, a former page recalled how
he was thrilled when Foley appeared unexpectedly at his graduation ceremony in
June 2002 and gave him his personal e-mail address.
The messages were innocent at first. But
after moving home, he recalled, Foley started asking about "my
roommates, if I ever saw them naked." Within months, the congressman was
dangling a job offer, "because I was a hot boy," he said.
Two years later, when he contacted Foley for advice
on Washington D.C. hotels, the congressman wrote back: "You could always stay at
my place. I'm always here, I'm always lonely, and I'm always up for oral sex,"
the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Another former page said he felt he had to flirt with
Foley, who had said he is homosexual and an alcoholic and that he was abused by
a priest as a child.
"I didn't want to piss off a member of an institution
that I really revered," the former Republican page said.
"I figured maybe someday I will want to be involved
in Congress," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I didn't want to make an
enemy."
Republican leaders have said they did not know about
the explicit e-mails sent by Foley before media reports, but a former top aide
to Foley has said he told senior aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert about
Foley's behavior three years ago.
The FBI and Florida officials are conducting criminal
investigations into Foley's dealings with former pages.
(Agencies)
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