Anthony Weiner has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for sexting with a teenager and, if the photographs of him leaving the federal courthouse in Manhattan are any indication, the former US congressman has hit an all-time low.
Weiner sent a series of explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl, including links to pornography and requests to disrobe for him on Skype. He pled guilty in May to transferring obscene material to a minor.
Speaking in the courtroom, Weiner cried and apologized for his actions, saying he was “a very sick man for a very long time” as read from a written statement. “The crime I committed was my rock bottom,” he said. “I live a different and better life today.”
The 53-year-old’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, filed for divorce last year after a leaked photo published in the New York Post showed Weiner posing in a provocative stance in bed next to his young son. “After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband,” Abedin said then. “Anthony and I remain devoted to doing what is best for our son, who is the light of our life.”
He resigned from Congress in 2011, after inadvertently posting an indecent picture of himself to Twitter. He then unsuccessfully ran for NYC mayor in 2013. A documentary, Weiner, initially billed as a comeback kid story of redemption, instead provided an intimate look at the ill-fated mayoral campaign as it unraveled amid a new round of sexting allegations.
Weiner’s repeated scandals cost him not only his political career and marriage, but arguably may have also helped tilt the White House to Donald Trump. In the waning days of the presidential campaign, then-FBI director James Comey announced the agency was re-opening an inquiry into the emails of Hillary Clinton, which were found on Abedin’s computer in relation to the Weiner investigation. Clinton has cited Comey’s last-minute announcement as a key reason for her defeat in 2016.