Weiner faces net child sex abuse charge
UNITED STATES: Anthony Weiner, whose sexting habit ended his political career and his marriage and was blamed, indirectly, for tilting the outcome of the US presidential election, may face charges related to sexual abuse of children.
Investigators seized Weiner’s laptop and mobile phone last year after a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina reported holding lewd text and online conversations with the former congressman.
She said that he had sent her photos of himself partially clothed and had asked her to strip for him as they chatted on a video messaging service.
The US attorney’s office in Manhattan and the FBI are now considering a charge against Weiner of producing child abuse images, which carries a minimum prison term of 15 years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The paper reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan had met lawyers for Weiner, who sought to deter them from bringing charges.
It is not known whether they reached an agreement.
The FBI and the US attorney’s office in Manhattan have declined to comment.
Weiner, 52, claims that he was the subject of a hoax; the alleged victim, who told reporters that they were corresponding between January and July last year, has said that Weiner knew she was a minor and in high school.
She provided a catalogue of photographs that the former congressman had sent, showing him without a shirt, or emerging from a swimming pool.
Similar images of Weiner, sent to women he had met on Twitter, have emerged sporadically since 2011, leading to his resignation from Congress and scuppering his attempted political comeback in the New York mayoral race in 2013.
A politician of undoubted talent, his persistent habit of sending strangers pictures of his crotch, sometimes under the pseudonym ‘‘Carlos Danger’’, had made him a laughing stock in New York.
His former wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign, sued for divorce last summer.
The emergence of the more serious allegations in September, involving a minor, led to an investigation by police and the FBI.
It also had an unexpected side effect: Weiner had shared a laptop with Abedin, and agents at the bureau came across a cache of emails between his estranged wife and Clinton.
That added to the controversy surrounding Clinton and her use of a private email server - and, her supporters say, slowed her race for the White House.
Bill Clinton was among those who said later that the issue had ultimately cost his wife the election. - The Times