Foley: 'It's Just Been a Real Hard Time'

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CONGRESSMAN_E_MAILS?SITE=NYNYD&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Nov 17, 11:38 PM EST

Foley: 'It's Just Been a Real Hard Time'

By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who has been in seclusion for weeks, attended a visitation Friday for his father, who died this week of complications from cancer. Foley checked himself into an Arizona facility Oct. 1 for what he said was treatment for alcoholism.
"It's just been a real hard time," Foley told The Associated Press.

Foley resigned from Congress on Sept. 29 after being confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill.Soon afterward, his attorneys announced that Foley was gay, suffered from alcoholism and had been molested by a priest as a teenage altar boy in Florida.

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, who has retired to Malta, has admitted having inappropriate encounters with Foley, including massaging him in the nude and skinny-dipping together, but he denies having sex with Foley. Church officials are investigating whether Mercieca had inappropriate contact with others.

On Friday, reporters and photographers were camped out on every corner surrounding the Quattlebaum-Holleman-Burse Funeral Home in West Palm Beach, as Foley's friends and family milled about inside.
Services for Edward Foley, who was 85 when he died Tuesday, were set for Saturday.

Florida authorities said Thursday they had opened a criminal investigation into whether Foley broke any laws related to his lurid communications. Federal authorities are also investigating. Foley's attorneys have said he never had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor. Meanwhile, a House ethics committee is looking into whether senior GOP officials hid what they knew about the computer messages.

[Yogi]

1. Yes, criminal charges are in order.....

but how do we get his government pension stopped?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. Well, there just isn't a lot to say

I hate to see any human in pain and distress, but all those years of power and abusing it...payback is, as they say, a bitch. Maybe he'll go to prison. Maybe that's the best thing for him.

But you know, I REALLY DON'T CARE.

[malaise]

3. Why is Foley treated differently from

that Kerr fellow? The entire article is sympathetic to him.

[GCP]

4. Oh no he didn't!!!

Wow - what a poor choice of words! :evilgrin:

[sweetheart]

5. They hounded him at his dad's funeral

Ya know, there are few crimes that warrant hounding a person at their dad's funderal, and
being a sexual predator, for all the sin, perhaps they should leave people alone at
the funerals of their loved ones. If you came up to hastle me at such a funeral, the only
quote you'd get is 'Fuck off.' with more flurid quotes for not leaving.

I'm sure Foley is hard, no sex and now no power, just his rosy republican palm to
rub away his sins and think of jesus.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Maybe he and brother Teddy can get together for a little fellowship.

[bobbolink]

7. It's Been A HARDER TIME for his victims!

Some of those kids will never get over what he did, yet we should feel sorry for him???

I don't get this at all.

[Eugene]

8. AP: Tearful Foley Says He Disappointed Dad

Tearful Foley Says He Disappointed Dad


Saturday November 18, 2006 8:46 PM

AP Photo FLWL108

By BRIAN SKOLOFF

Associated Press Writer

ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley sobbed Saturday
as he delivered a eulogy at his father's grave, alluding to his resignation from
Congress amid a sex scandal as disheartening to his dad.

"I disappointed him so much," said Foley, surrounded by about 50 friends and
family. "But he was so good of a man."

Edward Foley, a longtime educator, died Tuesday of complications from cancer.
He was 85.

The two had a close relationship, though in the last weeks of Edward Foley's
life his son was in a secluded Arizona treatment facility.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6224488,00.html