He allegedly tried long and hard to meet a 13-year-old girl he'd met online for sex - and now a renowned computer language programmer and top executive for one of the Internet's major search portals faces charges, since the girl in question turned out to be the creation of an FBI agent.
Infoseek and GO Network executive vice president Patrick Naughton - who was famous for his work on Sun Microsystem's Java programming language - was arrested late last Thursday after he reportedly arranged to meet with the girl, according to an affidavit the bureau released over the weekend.
The case poses a crisis of sorts for Disney, which purchased Infoseek last year and has also been under periodic fire for its ownership of or distribution of some racier television programs and films. Infoseek operates GO, which includes some of the Net's biggest sites - including ABCNews.com, ESPN.com, and DisneyOnline.
The FBI affidavit is said to describe some dozen on-line chats, e-mails, and telephone conversations over seven months in which he tried to meet the girl for sex, even though he was told on several occasions she was only 13 years old. Naughton even gave the undercover agent a Web address which included a photograph of what Naughton said were his own genitals, the affidavit adds.
It also says Naughton admitted to chatting with two undercover FBI agents and agreed to his laptop computer being searched for sexually explicit photographs of children.
Naughton's arrest came out of a combined effort between federal and local law enforcement. He faces up to fifteen years in prison if he's convicted. He's free on $100,000 bond and faces arraignment 12 October. Neither he nor Infoseek have commented as of Tuesday morning on the case.
The case draws a large shadow over a glittering computer career. Naughton joined Infoseek after fashioning a record which made him something of a high-tech wonderboy. He was part of the Sun team which created Java, moving to Starwave in 1994 and serving as president and chief technology officer, before joining Infoseek.
