Foley 'disappointed' dad

ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley sobbed Saturday as he delivered a eulogy at his father's grave, alluding to his resignation from Congress amid a sex scandal as disheartening to his dad.

"I disappointed him so much," said Foley, surrounded by about 50 friends and family. "But he was so good of a man."

Edward Foley, a longtime educator, died Tuesday of complications from cancer. He was 85.

The two had a close relationship, though in the last weeks of Edward Foley's life his son was in a secluded Arizona treatment facility.

Mark Foley checked himself in on Oct. 1 for what his attorneys said was treatment of "alcoholism and other behavioral problems." He returned to Florida to attend his father's wake Friday.

Foley resigned from Congress on Sept. 29 after being confronted with sexually explicit messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill.

After his father's diagnosis of cancer in 2003, Mark Foley abandoned a bid for the U.S. Senate, saying he needed to be with his family. The decision to bow out of that race also came shortly after an alternative newspaper reported that he was gay. The congressman denounced the allegation as a rumor spread by his political opponents, but he refused to answer questions about whether he was homosexual.

Soon after Foley entered the Arizona clinic, his attorneys announced that he was gay, suffered from alcoholism and that when he was a teenage altar boy he was molested by a priest. A retired priest has admitted having inappropriate encounters with Foley, including skinny-dipping, but he denies having sex with him.

Foley's attorneys have said he never had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor.

Florida authorities have opened a criminal investigation into whether Foley broke any laws related to his communications with the teens. Federal authorities are also investigating, and a House ethics committee is looking into whether senior GOP officials hid what they knew about Foley's messages.