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ABC ONLINE GLITCH LEADS TO IDENTITY OF FOLEY ACCUSER

FEATURED IM EXCHANGE WAS WITH 18 YEAR OLD

Wed Oct 04 2006 20:32:06 ET

A posting on ABCNEWS.COM of an unredacted instant message sessions between Rep. Mark Foley and a former congressional page has exposed the identity of the now 21 year-old accuser.

The website PASSIONATE AMERICA detailed the startling exposure late Wednesday.

ABCNEWS said in a statement: "We go to great lengths to prevent the names of alleged sex crime victims from being revealed. On Friday there was a very brief technical glitch on our site which was overridden immediately. It is possible that during that very brief interval a screen name could have been captured. Reviews of the site since then show no unredacted screen names."

SEX CHAT WAS WITH 18 YEAR OLD

On Tuesday ABC news released a high-impact instant message exchange between full-length and, as ABC explained, a young man "under the age of 18."

ABC headlined the story: "New Foley Instant Messages; Had Internet Sex While Awaiting House Vote"

But upon reviewing the records, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, the young man was in fact over the age of 18 at the time of the exchange.

A network source explains exchanges with the young man and disgraced former Congressman Foley took place before and after the 18th birthday.

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A network source explains exchanges with the young man and disgraced former Congressman Foley took place before and after the 18th birthday.

Instead of "18th", shouldn't it be "18^th" with the superscript? We need to get Dan Rather in here to tell us which one of these is right.

Update 8:55PM: ABC Trying to Hide Foley Mistake? Changes Text of 'Blotter' Entry This post pointed out that ABC had mislead the public by misstating the age of one of the former pages who was instant messaged by Mark Foley as under 18. ABC News has changed the copy on their story about the Foley IMs:

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys who began their exchanges with Foley at the age of 16 and 17, and continued through the age of 18.

But the original wording is still in the Google cache:

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

The "Blotter" entry does not acknowledge the correction.