Patrick Naughton, 34, an executive vice president of Infoseek Corp. and Disney's GO Network, was apprehended late Thursday night at in Santa Monica, California, after he had arranged to meet a teenage girl who actually turned out to be the creation of an FBI special agent, according to a 17-page criminal complaint and affidavit released by the FBI Saturday.
On one occasion, Naughton even supplied the undercover agent with a Web site address containing a picture of male genitalia Naughton said were his own.
Naughton, who resides in Seattle, also engaged in similar chats with a second undercover agent, the FBI filing said.
The document, written by FBI Special Agent Bruce Applin, concludes by saying that Naughton admitted to chatting on numerous occasions with the undercover agents and agreed to a search of his laptop which contained sexually explicit pictures of children.
Inter-agency operation
By late Saturday evening, neither Naughton, nor his attorneys, could be reached for comment and Infoseek officials had not responded to ZDNN's request for a reaction to the arrest. Infoseek, which was acquired by Disney last year, operates the GO Network, consisting of the some of the Web's biggest sites, including ESPN.com, ABCNews.com and Disney Online.
Laura Bosley, a spokesperson for the FBI's Los Angeles bureau, said the arrest resulted from the coordinated efforts of federal and local law enforcement authorities working together as part of a Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement -- or SAFE -- Team.
FBI Agent Applin's affidavit details more than a dozen encounters. They began on March 8 after Applin logged into an Internet Relay Chat Channel called #0!!!!!!!!dad&daughtersex.log using a female screen name.
"At 3:39 p.m. I received a private message from an individual using the screen name hotseattle. I described myself as a 13-year-old girl from Los Angeles...During the conversation hotseattle said he was interested in meeting in Los Angeles 'sometime' to 'kiss, make out, and play and stuff.' He also said he would 'lick and suck you all over.'"
Explicit exchanges
Other encounters described by the FBI include:
The affadavit also describes two phone calls from the LA County deputy to a number provided by hotseattle to a second undercover agent. The number led to an extension for Patrick Naughton of Infoseek.
FBI agents arrested Naughton as he approached the LA County deputy at the Santa Monica pier -- as had been arranged with hotseattle.
Wunderkind
He joined Infoseek after having established a bio that that positioned him as something of an industry wunderkind.
He joined Sun Microsystems Inc. in 1988, and made his mark as part of the team that created what is now the widespread Java programming language. In 1994, he moved to Starwave, the Seattle-based Web development services company, where he served as president and chief technology officer.
Naughton, who won notoriety for his work on Sun Microsystem's Java programming language, could face up to 15 years in prison on the charges. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Naughton, who did not enter a plea, was ordered to post a US$100,000 bond. He faces arraignment Oct. 12.
Applin also describes far more explicit exchanges as part of the chat, which ended more than four hours later.
A May 14 chat in which hotseattle provided the undercover agent with the address of a Forbes magazine Web site in which he'd been cited, a Seattle telephone number and a e-email address. "Hotseattle said that he had a digital camera that he could use to make 'any' type of picture I liked." A May 21 chat in which hotseattle said he loved 13-year-old girls. "Hotseattle told me he wanted to get me alone in his hotel room and have me strip naked for him." An Aug. 5 IRC chat in which hotseattle suggested the undercover agent skip school for a day to be with him. An Aug. 27 chat in which hotseattle admitted to confusing the undercover agent with another girl - who, it turned out, was using the screen name of a second FBI undercover agent. In this exchange, hotseattle also provided the a Web site address containing a picture of male genitalia, along with a picture of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy at 13 -- transmitted to hotseattle by the second FBI agent. A Sept. 16 chat in which someone using the name sfmate attempted to set up a meeting with agent. At the time, sfmate said he also used the screen name hotseattle.
Disney named Naughton executive vice president responsible for content and technology for Go Networks in January.
