How FBI Baited Trap That Snared Web Wiz -- `It Has Not Been A Secret We're Out There Policing'

In the pantheon of the Internet, the brilliant minds that invented, shaped and groomed the cyberspace world, Patrick Naughton is at least a demigod. To the tech-savvy, he is something close to a household word.

He is credited with inspiring and helping to invent Java, the revolutionary, Internet-friendly computer language. Later, he was a guiding force in Paul Allen's brainchild Starwave. And most recently, he was an executive vice president at the popular Web portal company Infoseek. He is worth millions.

So yesterday, while some who worked with Naughton said it was no secret he frequented cyberspace's seamier side, it was hard to comprehend how someone so deeply in tune with the technology could have stumbled into an FBI trap - allegedly duped into thinking he was luring a 13-year-old girl into a sexual liaison when in reality he was the one about to be snared.

"It has not been a secret we're out there policing the Internet," said Special Agent Randy Aden, who heads the FBI team that arrested Naughton on Thursday in Santa Monica, Calif.

Naughton, 34, has been charged in federal court with interstate travel with the intent of having sex with a minor. Additional charges are possible. Investigators are reviewing the contents of a laptop computer Naughton turned over to them.

He is free on $100,000 bond while awaiting arraignment Oct. 12 in California. Under terms of his bail, he can't go anywhere but Washington and California, he surrendered his passport, he can't use the Internet except for business purposes and is forbidden to be alone with minors without consent of their parents, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Donahue.

Naughton has not commented and couldn't be reached yesterday.

How the FBI tracks chat rooms

In a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court, agents said they posed as a teen in an Internet chat room in March and were contacted by Naughton, who was calling himself "hotseattle."

Over seven months, "hotseattle" and agents conversed, the complaint said. Authorities said he invited the "girl" to meet him Sept. 16 at the Santa Monica Pier, promising to take her to his hotel room and show her photos of himself with another girl he supposedly had on his computer.

Instead, the person waiting was an undercover FBI agent. Naughton was jailed overnight, and his laptop computer seized as evidence.

Naughton, Aden said, was essentially netted in an FBI trawling expedition in the vast ocean of chat rooms.

Aden is one of a pair of special agents assigned to the FBI's Sexual Assault Special Enforcement (SAFE) team in Los Angeles, which was formed in 1995 because of the sudden upsurge in sex crimes using the Internet.

How the FBI tracks chat rooms is a trade secret, Aden said. But the complaint involving Naughton reveals at least one key element: They use the same cyber-tricks that make chat-room visitors think they are safe and anonymous.

Internet chat rooms allow people to log on using strictly anonymous nicknames. And newer, Internet-based e-mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! allow people to get and send e-mail anonymously.

"The Internet gives a false sense of anonymity," Aden said.

So FBI agents go to chat rooms and pretend to be young girls. Essentially, they bait the hook and hope for a bite.

The criminal complaint against Naughton said that while he was arranging to meet with the undercover agent, he also was allegedly chatting with other girls and claimed to have already met some of them.

The origins of Java

Naughton's rise to success started in his family's popular restaurant in Churchville, N.Y., where Naughton earned enough money to buy his first computer, an Apple II.

After earning straight A's in Catholic schools, Naughton worked his way through college as a software engineer. He graduated from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., in 1988.

Immediately, he was off to Silicon Valley to work for Sun Microsystems.

Two years later, Naughton was frustrated with the company and had accepted another job with Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs at his new company, NeXT. As an off-handed, parting shot, Naughton sent a missive to Sun CEO Scott McNealy saying Sun had lost its vision.

McNealy paid to keep Naughton and handed him the reins of a project called "Green," which would eventually give birth to Java, a computer language that can be read by more than one computer operating system.

"If I had left, Java wouldn't have existed," he told the Rochester Business Journal in New York in 1997.

In the wake of Java's success, he also wrote two books, "The Java Handbook" and "Java: The Complete Reference."

In a 1997 piece he wrote for Forbes magazine titled "Mr. Famous Comes Home," Naughton said he joined Starwave because he had finally had enough of Sun: "I had done all this work and was not going to get any of the glory," he said.

"But I'd have lots and lots of regrets if I'd become a short-order cook at Denny's. Given that I'm the president of a company that has five of the top 10 Internet properties on the planet, it's OK. . . . I'm glad I'm at the top of the food chain."

So much to lose

At Starwave and later at Infoseek, he is known as an outgoing, energetic leader. He enjoys ice hockey and boating and played on a company soccer team.

"He's someone whom everybody looked up to," said an Infoseek employee who asked not to be named. "It's a double sting to have someone who was looked up to have a fall like this."

Not everyone was so surprised. Other former colleagues said it was common knowledge around the office that Naughton frequented chat rooms.

Meanwhile, Naughton's former colleagues at Sun, as well as executives at Starwave and Infoseek, have declined comment. Infoseek has said only that Naughton no longer works there, and the company doesn't condone "behavior of this nature."

Disney, which owns 43 percent of Infoseek and is in the midst of buying the rest of the company, has sought to distance itself from Naughton's arrest. He was an employee of Infoseek, not Disney, a spokeswoman said. But at the same time, top Disney executive Steven Bornstein is visiting the Bellevue office today to speak with employees. Bornstein was recently named the new chairman of Disney's Buena Vista Internet Group.

Naughton is married to a Seattle artist. They have no children. His stock and options in Infoseek, where he earned $183,000 a year, have been valued at $13.3 million. The couple's Perkins Lane home overlooking Puget Sound was purchased for $1.2 million.

To most observers, what seems strange is that someone like Naughton, with so much to lose, could do what the FBI says he did. But counselors who treat sex offenders aren't surprised at all by such cases.

"You're asking: How could somebody so smart be so stupid?" says Michael O'Connell, president of the state chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.

"The working answer is, boy, when you get yourself wrapped up in this stuff - whether it's alcohol abuse, gambling or sexual compulsion - you can sometimes lose your way. Being smart may be protective, but it's by no means a guarantee."

Internet replaces schoolyard

Sex-offender treatment providers and law-enforcement officers alike say the Internet has made their job much harder.

"Pedophiles don't have to hang around schoolyards with bags of candy anymore," said Ray Lauer, an FBI agent in Seattle. "They can just go to an Internet chat room to get what they want."

During the Internet chats, the complaint said, Naughton allegedly persisted in his requests to meet the girl, though he was repeatedly asked if he realized he was typing to a 13-year-old and could get into trouble.

As investigators, Aden said, "We sure make it clear we are underage, and if they don't want to go forward, that's fine with us.

"Some people do get pangs of conscience and back out. It's good to see somebody back away. But we still have people - and in positions of incredible responsibility - who still go ahead."

Seattle Times staff reporters Jack Broom, Helen Jung, Susan Gilmore, Carol Ostrom and Arthur Santana contributed to this report.