JUDGMENT DAY
ANTHONY WEINER couldn’t keep his hands off it: His laptop.
The cybersex-crazed ex-congressman’s online obsessions destroyed his bright political future, with his City Hall ambitions submarined by years of pervy postings — some under the bizarre alias Carlos Danger.
Weiner’s wooing of his latest internet ingenue, a 15-year-old North Carolina high school student, will likely lead to prison time for the one-time political whiz kid.
After tearfully admitting to a series of sleazy sexts where he told the teen to strip and “touch herself,” Weiner faces sentencing Monday in Manhattan Federal Court.
His lawyers are pushing for probation. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office wants Weiner to serve from 21 to 27 months behind bars.
Jail or not, the 53-year-old Weiner will spend the rest of his life as a registered sex offender. The hearing marks the end of a long, self-destructive journey for a politician once destined for greater things than a prison cell.
After serving as an aide to thenRep. Chuck Schumer from 1985-1991, Weiner successfully campaigned for New York City Council. He became the youngest council member in the legislative body’s history. When Schumer announced a Senate run in September 1998, Weiner (photo) threw his hat in the ring and succeeded his mentor in Congress.
He was lucky in love, too: ExPresident Bill Clinton presided over his July 10, 2010, wedding to longtime Hillary aide Huma Abedin. The lovebirds soon welcomed a beautiful boy.
And then Weiner’s raunchy online relationships reduced everything to rubble. A succession of increasingly vile sexting episodes ruined his career, his marriage — and ultimately, his life.
Defense lawyers seeking a reduced sentence argue that Weiner morphed from creep to criminal because of a long-untreated “addiction.”
He is now, they insist, in recovery.
“There can be no question that, at the time of the offense, Anthony was a very sick man, in the throes of a self-destructive compulsion that swept up innocents in its wake,” said his lawyer Arlo Devlin-Brown.
Prosecutors counter that Weiner’s history of continued internet trysts support their pitch for a prison sentence. And experts contacted by the Daily News were skeptical that the defense claims would lead to leniency.
“I don’t think (sex) addiction has risen to the same status as if it were drug addiction or addiction to alcohol, so in that context, it’s more of a lame excuse and may be viewed that way by the court,” said lawyer Ron Elberger, who repped ex-Subway pitchman Jared Fogle in his child porn case.
On May 27, 2011, Weiner posted on Twitter a selfie of him posing in his underwear. He claimed he was hacked, but later admitted that was a lie. Less than three weeks later, nude and semi-nude photos of Weiner emerged on TMZ.com. He copped to courting a half-dozen cyberflames through Twitter, Facebook and text messages — leading to his resignation from Congress on June 16, 2011.
His 2013 mayoral bid imploded after his internet tryst with Sydney Leathers went public. In August 2016, reports surfaced that Weiner was swapping sexts while seated alongside his sleeping son, who was just 4 at the time.