Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley said Thursday that he'd answered "no" on federal background-check forms when asked if he'd ever been charged with anything more than a "minor traffic offense" -- even though he'd been arrested, but not convicted, on charges of first-degree attempted assault and breach of peace.
Foley said in a telephone interview that he stood by those answers -- which he gave on questionnaire forms for service in the administration of President George W. Bush -- because the arrests in 1981 and 1993 related to what he considered minor traffic incidents and the charges were dropped.
The one question that that Foley said he might possibly answer differently, in retrospect, was on a national-security clearance form: "Have you ever been charged with or convicted of any felony offense?"
Foley was charged in 1981, at age 29, with attempted first-degree assault, and kept in a cell overnight, after occupants of a vehicle complained that he had rammed their car with his in Southampton, N.Y., on Long Island. But he said it was really only a minor, low-speed traffic incident and the charge was later dropped -- and he said "nobody ever told me it was a felony offense." Under current New York penal laws, attempted first-degree assault is a felony, and New York officials were doing research Thursday to verify if it also was in 1981.