<p>An Atlanta man told a local television station and newspaper that former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley sent him sexually suggestive messages after he served as a congressional page 10 years ago.</p><p>Tyson Vivyan, 26, of Buckhead told WAGA-TV in a Wednesday interview that Foley began sending him instant messages about a month or two after his nine-month stint as a page ended in June 1997</p><p>Vivyan told the station that when he was a congressional page in 1996 and 1997 he barely spoke to Foley. But after he left the program _ when he was 17 years old _ Vivian says they had contact via e-mail about things he says where inappropriate.</p><p>"He somehow got ahold of my online identity on AOL and began sending me sexually illicit ims," Vivyan said in the TV interview.</p><p>Vivyan said he became upset when he learned that the messages were from Foley.</p><p>"The fact that here is a member of Congress soliciting some type of a sexual relationship from a minor," he said.</p><p>"The conversations he started were almost sexual in nature," Vivyan said in a separate interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I would try to steer it to things he was doing on (Capitol) Hill."</p><p>Vivyan is not listed in Atlanta telephone records, and efforts to reach him Thursday morning by The Associated Press were not immediately successful.</p><p>Vivyan said he was interviewed this week by the FBI. FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett in Atlanta declined comment Thursday on Vivyan's statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constituion that he had been interviewed by an agent in Atlanta. Emmett referred further questions to FBI headquarters in Washington.</p><p>Foley's attorney, David Roth, declined to comment Thursday on the allegations from the former page.</p><p>Vivyan told WAGA he received messages from someone with the screen name "Maf54", which has been widely reported as belonging to Foley.</p><p>Vivian said) the contact continued for years. He said he never felt threatened.</p><p>"Absolutely not. No, to me, it was simply a very lonely, very sick, very desperate man seeking attention from someone he apparently found attractive," he told the television station.</p><p>Vivyan said he kept the matter to himself, "because I was under the impression at least initially that it was an isolated incident."</p><p>Now that Foley's contact with other pages has blown into a scandal, Vivyan told the TV station he should have broken his silence earlier.</p><p>"I'm very disappointed in myself for not having the courage to do it back in 96-97. I was hoping and praying it was an isolated incident _ myself, maybe one or two others. Now it seems this has been progressive manipulative and wide-ranging abuse of adult authority on mark's part and it's affected more people than I ever hoped it would."</p><p>"I consider myself a victim but I don't consider myself traumatized. The behavior that he perpetrated was wrong," he said in the interview.</p>
