Blogger reposts item 'outing' boy in Foley scandal, claimed he's of age

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday October 4, 2006

The blog Passionate America has revealed the identity and published a photograph of an alleged victim of disgraced Rep. Mark Foley in a post that was pulled and later re-posted with additional information.

RAW STORY can verify that the young man in question is not the Congressional page from the emails that originally surfaced; with that in mind, a direct link to the Passionate America post is not provided here.

RAW STORY has learned that the recipient of the Foley emails is currently 17 (and was 16 at the time of the correspondence).

Passionate America contends that the young man they identified took part in some of the instant message conversations obtained by ABC news. In those messages, the boy explicitly identified himself as being under the age of 18.

If the boy was over the age of 18 at the time of the messages, Foley's communication with him would likely still be considered criminal. Sex predator legislation is generally written bearing in mind that law enforcement sting operations rely on undercover officers pretending to be minors.

However, even if he is now 21, the man identified could still have been as young as 16 at the time of the messages. ABC has stated that they are in possession of chat logs from as much as five years back.