Jail time for sexting teen

CONGRESSMAN IN TEARS: PLEADS TO BE SPARED FROM PRISON TO CONTINUE TREATMENT

Weiner’s wife was an aide to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

US congressman Anthony Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison yesterday for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-yearold girl, setting off a scandal that played a role in the 2016 US presidential election.

Weiner, 53, started to cry as soon as the sentence was announced by US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty in May to transferring obscene messages to a minor, and agreed he would not appeal any sentence of 27 months or less.

“I was a very sick man for a very long time, but I’m also responsible for the damage I have done,” Weiner said in court before he was sentenced. He said he was being treated, and asked Cote to spare him prison and sentence him to probation so he could continue treatment.

Cote said she believed Weiner was suffering from an addiction, and was serious about being treated. However, she said it was important to impose a sentence that would deter others from committing similar crimes.

“There is the opportunity to make a statement that could protect other minors,” she said.

Weiner declined to speak to reporters as he left the courtroom. He will surrender on November 6.

The investigation into Weiner’s exchanges with a North Carolina high school student roiled the 2016 US presidential campaign in its final days, when authorities found e-mails on Weiner’s laptop from his wife Huma Abedin, an aide to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Abedin has filed for divorce. Weiner wore his wedding band at the sentencing.

The discovery of the e-mails prompted James Comey, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to announce in late October that the agency was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was US secretary of state.

Clinton has said the announcement contributed to her upset loss to Republican Donald Trump, who had accused her of endangering national security by using the private server. President Trump fired Comey in May amid the FBI’s probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Clinton. – Reuters