Sep 9, 2009 10:56 am US/Eastern
Fmr. Congressman Foley To Host Radio Show
NORTH PALM BEACH (CBS4) ―
A former South Florida congressman who resigned his position after it was revealed that he sent sexually explicit emails and text messages to male teens who served as Capitol pages now has his own radio show.
"Inside the Mind of Mark Foley" will air on WSVU in North Palm Beach beginning on September 22nd. The station is promoting the show as an inside look at the inner workings of Washington. Foley taped his first show on Tuesday in which he took a look at such subjects as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the role it played in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Asked why the SEC didn't catch Madoff's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme sooner, Foley said SEC members have more on their minds.
"Members who work for the SEC, and not all of them are bad, but all of them are hoping to parlay their government service into a big paying, New York, Wall Street job," Foley said.
Shortly after resigning his seat in 2006 Foley revealed that he was gay, an alcoholic, and had been molested by a priest as a teenage altar boy.
"I loved my early life and then along came a priest who forced me into a sexual relationship at the age of 12. And right shortly thereafter, I failed eighth grade, I started drugs, I started drinking, I started smoking," Foley said.
An investigation revealed that Foley never had any sexual contact with the teens, just inappropriate conversations.
The irony of the scandal that ended his congressional career was that Foley had built a national reputation as an advocate for tougher penalties against child sexual predators. He helped craft a law to protect children on the Internet.
"The work I was doing was involving young children. You know, you hear the term 'pedophile.' That is prepubescent," said Foley who added that there was a big difference in the lurid chats he had with teens on the brink of adulthood.
Foley first approached the radio station a few months ago with the idea for a show. Station honchos then huddled to discuss the pros and cons -- the main con being whether listeners would be turned off by Foley's past.
"We weighed the informative aspect of it against everything else and determined that what he has to say is much more important," said show producer Joe Raineri.
The show is not costing the station a dime. Foley, who is doing the show for free, has said he'll go out and find his own advertisers. A resident of West Palm Beach, Foley currently works in real estate investment.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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