The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

Local news

Discussion

October 10, 2006

Jones reports page will be questioned today about Foley

By Scott Fitzgerald Staff Writer

FBI special agents will question a former congressional page today in Oklahoma City at an undisclosed location about the recent sex scandal, said Enid attorney Stephen Jones, who is representing the man.

“They (FBI) will question Jordan Edmund concerning his knowledge, if any, about former congressman Mark Foley,” Jones said.

Foley, 52, stepped down recently from his House seat after he was confronted by “ABC News” with sexually explicit electronic messages he had sent teenage male pages. Through his attorney, Foley has said he is gay but denied any sexual contact with minors.

Edmund, who hails from California and was a U.S. House page from September 2001 to June 2002, is believed to have been the target of some of Foley’s salacious messages. He is a campaign aide to Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., who is running against Gov. Brad Henry for the governor’s seat.

Edmund has taken a leave of absence from the campaign since he was identified last week by an Oklahoma-based Internet blogger who linked a screen name associated with Edmund that was inadvertently published by “ABC News.”

Jones said in an earlier interview he will be able to counsel his client during the course of any FBI questioning.

“There (has) certainly been a velocity of press coverage, grand jury interest, House interest, Department of Justice interest,” Jones said. “For a 21-year-old man I think he (Edmund) is holding up pretty well under the stress and strain, but there is no question it changed his life.”

In an interview with Associated Press Television News on Sunday, Jones said both he and Edmund have received “physical threats.”

Jones did not elaborate as the nature or context of those threats.

In an earlier interview with the News & Eagle, Jones said Edmund had felt “under some harassment from the velocity of the publicity” and he did not want Edmund to appear publicly to make statements or answer questions.

“I think he has demonstrated his integrity,” Jones said about his client’s willingness to cooperate with any questioning or inquiries concerning Foley and the congressional page program.

Text Only
Local news