Foley: Dirty Old Man

That's what he would be called if he was after young girls. It's creepy either way.

After interviewing some 40 former congressional pages, FBI agents have yet to turn up any evidence of direct sexual contact between underage pages and former Congressman Mark Foley.

Instead, according to law enforcement officials and several former pages, a pattern is emerging of seduction by Foley that began when the boys were 16 and 17. In cases where actual sex followed, it was not until the boys were at the legal age of 18.

"He spotted me when I was a page and set the hook while I was still in high school," one former page told ABC News. "He didn't reel me in until he showed up at my college campus on a congressional visit. We had sex," said the page, who has been interviewed by the FBI.

"As someone who wrote many of the laws, he presumably knew exactly what he could get away with," said one law enforcement official.

As the former co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, he helped enact laws that toughened penalties on Internet predators and resulted in more FBI agents assigned to Internet sex crimes.

Throughout the lurid instant messages Foley sent to current and former pages, there are repeated references to waiting until the young men are 18.