Where Are They Now? This Week: Mark Foley
Occasionally we wonder where they are now, disgraced or ousted members of Congress who have disappeared - or not - from the scene. In this week's installment of our new feature "Where Are They Now" we first look at former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who will forever be remembered for his tawdry instant messages to teenage male House pages.
Foley has been paying visits recently to Beverly Hills, where he was spotted just last weekend. We figure he may be looking for a job in Hollywood. Because in addition to his cringingly ironic role as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, Foley - until he resigned on Sept. 29, 2006 - also served as head of the Congressional Entertainment Industries Caucus. In that role, he cultivated lots of contacts in Hollywood.
Foley and his close associates won't say what jobs Foley is contemplating until the former congressman can be sure he's cleared of any criminal liability. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is still investigating charges that Foley sent electronic messages to pages while he was in Pensacola. The Justice Department investigation has fizzled out, though it technically remains open.
We're told Foley is quietly plotting a comeback in some form, political or not. "He's talking about how to re-emerge publicly after the investigation is over," a source close to Foley tells the Sleuth.
The same source says Foley sometimes stays with one of his sisters who lives in the LA area. And in Palm Beach, Foley and his longtime partner, a dermatologist, go to dinner parties where old friends "seem to be welcoming [Foley] back into the fold."
After he was nabbed in the page scandal, the last straw that cost House Republicans their majority, Foley came out of the closet as a gay man. He and his partner, Layne Nisenbaum - who, as you can see here, specializes in cosmetic surgery - live in Palm Beach in a nice house on the Intercoastal Waterway. (Foley sold his house on Capitol Hill but still owns beachfront property in St. Lucie County, Fla.)
No word on whether Foley is continuing his treatment for sexual addiction and alcoholism. After he was busted sending inappropriate emails to teenage pages, he checked himself into a luxurious rehab in Arizona.
Foley and Nisenbaum are such a fixture on the Palm Beach social scene that, according to the Palm Beach Post, an upcoming art fair in West Palm Beach is being promoted with "Warholized" portraits of "well-known locals, including Palm Beach dermatologist and former U.S. Congressman Mark Foley's partner, Layne Nisenbaum."
Also in the "where are they now" department, former Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.) can probably kiss his political career good-bye. He was charged with drunken driving this week and state GOP party officials say he's, well, pretty much toast.
According to the Albany Times Union newspaper, a 23-year-old woman was in the car with Sweeney when he was pulled over at 1:19 a.m. Monday.
Sweeney and his wife divorced in September. Her allegations of spousal abuse in the run-up to Election Day led to his defeat by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. Of course, it really didn't help matters that Sweeney took a trip to the Mariana Islands with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and - woops - forgot to report it, as required by congressional ethics rules.
Also, Sweeney didn't fare well from the bad press he got for attending a drunken frat party at Union College. Pictures of the party featuring Sweeney with drunk college kids didn't go over so well with voters in his district.
If he's convicted, Sweeney faces up to a year in jail. So, any comeback he had hoped to make in the political arena is looking more and more unlikely.
UPDATE: New details have emerged about former Rep. Sweeney's DUI. When police pulled him over, they found not one, but TWO people sitting in the driver's seat: the unidentified 23-year-old woman traveling with Sweeney was sitting on his lap, according to this story in the Albany Times Union.
The story also notes that Sweeney, who lost his '06 re-election race to Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, was a "one-time STOP-DWI coordinator for Rensselaer County."
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