Weiner sent to prison for sexting teen
UNITED STATES: Anthony Weiner, the former congressman, was sentenced to 21 months in prison yesterday over a sexting scandal that set off a chain of events which Hillary Clinton claimed cost her the US presidency.
The charge, over messages exchanged with a 15-year-old girl, marked a fall from grace for Weiner, a Democrat politician married to Huma Abedin, Clinton’s top aide.
Weiner’s habit of sending sexual messages to strangers on social media destroyed his career in the US House of Representatives, his campaign to be mayor of New York, and his marriage.
The scandal that enveloped him also triggered a key event in the presidential election.
Eleven days before the vote James Comey, the then FBI director, announced that emails discovered on a laptop used by Weiner had led him to reopen an earlier high-profile investigation into Clinton’s use of a private computer server while she was secretary of state.
Clinton has blamed the negative publicity surrounding that decision for her defeat.
In a Manhattan court, Weiner, 53, wept as he was told to surrender to prison officials by November 6, and that he would be on the sex offenders register for life. He will serve three years of supervised probation after being released.
Weiner had previously pleaded guilty to one charge of transferring obscene material to a minor.
He wore his wedding ring in court but Abedin, with whom he has a five-year-old son, has filed for divorce and was not present.
In a statement to the court before sentencing Weiner broke down in tears, saying he had reached ‘‘rock bottom’’. He said: ‘‘I was a very sick man for a very long time but I’m also responsible for the damage I have done. I have a disease but no excuse.’’
Weiner said he was ‘‘profoundly sorry’’ to the victim. He described himself as an ‘‘addict,’’ and said he was undergoing treatment.
As the sentence was handed down by Judge Denise Cote, he held his head in his hands and cried. Prosecutors said Weiner had illicit contact with the girl, from North Carolina, including asking her to ‘‘sexually perform’’ for him, in conversations on Skype and Snapchat.
Lawyers for Weiner had argued that the girl contacted him first, and claimed that she had wanted material for a book, and possibly to influence the presidential election.
Weiner had previously resigned as a US congressman representing New York in 2011 after it emerged he had exchanged sexually explicit messages with several women.
On the same day Weiner was sentenced it emerged that Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-inlaw and senior adviser, used a personal email account to conduct White House business.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, said: ‘‘All non-personal emails were forwarded to his official address and all have been preserved in any event.’’