U.S. to Retry Exec on 2 Net-Related Sex Charges

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they will retry former Internet executive Patrick J. Naughton on two Internet-related sex charges that jurors deadlocked on during a previous trial last month.

The decision, announced at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is a significant gamble by prosecutors that a new panel of jurors will be more receptive to their case than the first, which split almost evenly on the two felony counts.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Patricia Donahue said the government decided to press ahead with a new trial because “we think the evidence establishes his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I respect the [first] jury’s decision, but obviously don’t agree with it.”

Naughton’s lead attorney, Donald Marks, said Wednesday that he and his high-profile client weren’t surprised by the government’s decision, and are confident a new trial will produce the same outcome.

“We look forward to a retrial,” Marks said, “and we think we will prevail. Again.”

The government’s decision was a blow to Naughton, 34, who now faces another costly trial, scheduled to begin in March, even as his attorneys are battling to overturn the one charge on which jurors did convict him: possession of child pornography.

Naughton, former executive vice president of Walt Disney Co.’s Go.com Web site, was arrested in September at the Santa Monica Pier after showing up for what authorities said he expected to be a sexual encounter with a minor he met online.

In reality, the minor was an undercover FBI agent who posed online as a 13-year-old girl and traded messages with Naughton for seven months in a chat room called “Dad&DaughterSex.;”

Naughton will be retried on one charge that he engaged in interstate travel with intent to have sex with a minor, and a second that accuses him of using the Internet to solicit sex from a minor--both felonies under federal law. If convicted, Naughton could face up to 30 years in prison.

Naughton’s attorneys signaled that they will not veer from the novel defense they pursued in the first trial, which centers on the notion that the Internet is a sexual fantasy land where participants commonly lie about everything from age to gender.

In that masquerade ball-like atmosphere, Marks argued, Naughton assumed he was chatting with an adult, and never expected to meet a minor at the pier.

The second trial will be complicated for both sides by uncertainty surrounding Naughton’s conviction on possession of child porn. One day after the verdict, a federal appeals court in San Francisco struck down a large portion of the child porn law as unconstitutional.

Days later, Naughton was released from jail by Judge Edward Rafeedie, who now must decide whether that San Francisco ruling entitles Naughton to a new trial on the child porn charge. Rafeedie is expected to rule on the matter Jan. 21.

Naughton, a Seattle resident who also held top positions with Sun Microsystems Inc., Infoseek Corp. and other technology companies, remains free on a $100,000 bond.