Weiner gets 21-month sentence for ‘sexting’ with 15-year-old girl
NEW YORK — He lost his seat in Congress, his bid to become mayor of New York City, and his marriage. He quite possibly destroyed Hillary Clinton’s shot at the presidency.
On Monday, Anthony Weiner, sobbing as the judge spoke, learned the final, personal cost of his seemingly uncontrollable habit of exchanging lewd texts and pictures with women: 21 months in prison.
Until now, Weiner, 53, had been the beneficiary of multiple second chances, resurrecting his political savvy and promise amid earnest vows that he had learned his lesson.
But this time, there would be no second chance for Weiner, who pleaded guilty in May to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor, and had faced up to 10 years in prison. His texting habit fueled his long and tortuous downfall. But it was his most recent exchanges with a 15-year-old girl that were the most personally ruinous: his wife filed for divorce, he pleaded guilty and now faces imprisonment. Before the sentence was pronounced, Weiner did not so much ask for leniency as try to make a case that he had accepted full responsibility for his crime, and that he was a changed man.
“I acted not only unlawfully but immorally, and if I had done the right thing, I would not be standing before you today,” he said, crying as he addressed the judge.
“The prosecutors are skeptical that I have truly changed and I don’t blame them,” he said. “I repeatedly acted in an obviously destructive way when I was caught.”
Reports of the federal investigation that led to Weiner being charged in the case first surfaced after the 15-year-old victim’s story was told in a DailyMail.com exposé in September 2016.
It was during that investigation that the FBI discovered on Weiner’s laptop a trove of emails belonging to his wife, Huma Abedin, a senior aide to Clinton. That led to an announcement in late October by James Comey, then the FBI director, that the bureau had opened a new inquiry into Clinton’s handling of official email. The inquiry ended two days before the election; Clinton has blamed Comey in part for her defeat.