Infoseek Exec Apparently Fired After Sex-Case Arrest

A top Infoseek Corp. executive was apparently fired this weekend after he was arrested by the FBI on Thursday and accused of using the Internet--sometimes from his office computer--to solicit sex from a 13-year-old girl.

Patrick J. Naughton, who was also responsible for some of Walt Disney Co.’s key Internet efforts, “is no longer an employee of Infoseek,” according to a statement from the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company.

“We are shocked and disturbed by the arrest of Patrick Naughton,” the statement said. “We want to be clear that behavior of this nature is deemed inappropriate and unacceptable by Infoseek and [Disney’s] Go Network.”

Naughton’s departure marks a swift corporate reaction to an arrest that is particularly embarrassing to Disney, a company that aims to be the Internet’s foremost provider of family-friendly content and services.

Infoseek, a leading Internet search engine, is already controlled by Disney and is being acquired by the Burbank-based entertainment giant.

Though technically an Infoseek employee, Naughton, 34, was executive vice president of products for the Go Network. That is Disney’s flagship brand in cyberspace and includes https://www.go.com, one of the Net’s five most popular sites.

Executives from Infoseek and Disney were not available for comment. But Harry Motro, president and chief executive of Infoseek, distributed an e-mail to employees over the weekend saying Naughton was no longer with the company and that he was shifting some of Naughton’s responsibilities to other executives.

Naughton, a Seattle resident who was released Friday after agreeing to post a $100,000 bond, did not return phone calls Monday.

His arrest and departure from Infoseek appear to mark the unraveling of a stellar Silicon Valley career. Naughton was part of a team at Sun Microsystems Inc. that created the Java programming language; he also was president of Starwave Corp., an influential Web design company.

According to the FBI, Naughton was arrested at the Santa Monica Pier late Thursday after arriving for a rendezvous with a woman he expected to be a teenager he met in a chat room known to be a place where adult men solicit younger girls.

The arrest capped a six-month investigation during which Naughton allegedly corresponded with a male FBI agent posing as a 13-year-old girl.

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Times staff writer Jeff Leeds contributed to this report.