Former New York congressman Anthony Weiner has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Weiner was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and will have to register as a sex offender. In May, Weiner pleaded guilty to sending obscene material to a minor. More details of his relationship with the girl, which reportedly went on for months, emerged last week, revealing that Weiner asked the girl to strip and touch herself on camera for him.
“With full knowledge that he was communicating with a real 15-year-old girl, [Weiner] asked her to engage in sexually explicit conduct via Skype and Snapchat, where her body was on display, and where she was asked to sexually perform for him,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Kramer wrote in a memo sent to federal prosecutors ahead of Weiner’s sentencing.
This sentencing marks the end of a years-long run of Weiner engaging in horrifyingly inappropriate behavior, apologizing, and then repeating the cycle. It was the investigation into his most recent sexting scandal that led the FBI to emails between Weiner and Huma Abedin, his soon-to-be ex-wife and former aide to Hillary Clinton during the presidential election. This prompted former FBI director James Comey to reopen the probe into Clinton’s emails, to which Clinton has partly attributed her loss of the 2016 election.
“The crime I committed was my rock bottom,” Weiner reportedly said during his sentencing on Monday. “But I am truly grateful that it began me on my recovery.”
The maximum penalty he faced was 10 years. He will begin serving his 21-month-prison sentence on November 6.