Some Say They Felt Uneasy About Representative's Attention

Foley spoke about his attachment to the program occasionally as part of the farewell address lawmakers delivered to House pages each summer. In 2002, he discussed how he was tempted "to put some money" in a card he gave to one page who had sent him a graduation notice.

"Then I realized he would tell all of you, and then I would get hundreds of graduation announcements," Foley said, according to the Congressional Record. "So I chose not to."

Another page had won a lunch with the congressman that year at the annual page auction. When he asked to go to Morton's steakhouse, Foley said on the House floor that the two of them "proceeded to cruise down in my BMW to Morton's. And all of this story is meant to make you all feel jealous that you were not the high bidders."

In a separate floor speech two years later, Foley praised the teenagers for their maturity. "Now, I know you have one more year of high school to conclude and that probably is some degree of relief or maybe, to those you feel like you are probably well equipped to enter your first year of college," he said. "Some of you, I think, in conversing with you, some are actually mature enough to enter college right away."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who served as a Senate page between 1963 and 1967, said Foley's attempts to socialize with pages went beyond the ordinary. Davis and other lawmakers may have taken their own pages to lunch at the Members' Dining Room at the end of the year, Davis said, but anything else was considered inappropriate.

As a page, Davis recalled, "if a member of Congress, a House member or a senator, took the time to talk to you, that was a big deal."

Anna Fry, a former House page who said she had never heard about Foley's advances, said some of her classmates may have been tempted to correspond with the congressman after they left because they were eager to land jobs on Capitol Hill.

"After we graduated, everyone wanted to come back. Everyone was looking for an opportunity to stay in Washington," Fry said. "I can see how a 16-year-old would be vulnerable to that."

Matt Schmitz, a former page whose younger brother also was a page, said: "I certainly warned my little brother, who was a page last year. A few of the members are a little friendlier to the pages."

Beck-Heyman, who contacted The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, joined the page program in the summer of 1995. He said a departing page told him to be "very careful" of Foley. Within weeks, Beck-Heyman said, Foley had learned his name and asked at least once to take him to get ice cream. He declined. After one all-night work session, Beck-Heyman's girlfriend -- another page -- offered to bring him breakfast. Foley asked if she was his girlfriend. "It was an odd conversation," Beck-Heyman said.

After he completed the page program, Beck-Heyman wrote thank-you notes to 10 House members. He received a reply from Foley almost immediately, suggesting that the two meet up during the Republican convention in San Diego.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.