According to Reuters, Patrick Naughton, 34, of Seattle, Washington,
executive vice president of products at Infoseek Corp., the Internet media
site which is part of Disney's Go Network, was arrested on Thursday,
September 16, 1999 on the Santa Monica Pier, an amusement park area in West
Los Angeles. The arrest came after he met a female FBI agent who had
arranged to meet him there, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the
U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. He is charged with interstate travel
with the intention of having sex with a minor. Naughton was arraigned on
Friday, September 17, and released after posting a $100,000 bond.
Ironically, Norton's arrest came just days after Disney launched a warning
about children talking to strangers on the Internet on its British, French
and German websites. On March 8, 1999, Naughton is alleged to have started
posting lewd messages under the screen name "HotSeattle" in an Internet
chat room to a male FBI agent who was posing as a 13-year-old-girl. It was
this girl that Naughton expected to meet at the Santa Monica Pier. Naughton
is a Disney veteran who was formerly with its Starwave Web development
operations. Sources say Infoseek fired Naughton immediately after his
arrest. Disney is in the process of combining its diverse Internet holdings
under a single company known as Go.com, which will include the Disney
Store, ESPN.com and ABCNews.com with Infoseek's Web search engine and other
Internet functions. Disney Online is the No. 1 most visited site among kids
and their families on the Internet, according to July statistics from Web
market research firm Media Metrix. Naughton's arrest comes as part of wide
ranging undercover sting operation investigating the Internet by a southern
California task force known as Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE).