A Manhattan judge is scheduled to sentence Anthony Weiner Monday for his sexts to a minor—and prosecutors want the former U.S. Representative behind bars.
Weiner in May pleaded guilty to sending a series of sexually explicit pictures and messages to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. As part of that agreement, he agreed not to appeal any sentence between 21 and 27 months and will register as a sex offender. Officials are seeking a two-year sentence.
Federal prosecutors dismissed Weiner’s claim of regret and assertion that he is undergoing treatment, saying he failed to learn any lessons from his previous sexting scandals and his conduct “suggests a dangerous level of denial and lack of self-control.”
Weiner resigned from Congress in June 2011 after admitting to “exchang[ing] messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years.” Then, in 2013, while running for mayor of New York, he was caught in another sexting scandal after sending explicit photos to a 22-year-old using the alias “Carlos Danger.”
“He initially denied his conduct; he suffered personal and professional consequences; he publicly apologized and claimed reform. Yet, he has, on multiple occasions, continued to engage in the very conduct he swore off, progressing from that which is self-destructive to that which is also destructive to a teenage girl,” prosecutors wrote.
Weiner’s conduct is considered a potential catalyst for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 presidential election. Less than two weeks before Election Day, then-FBI director James Comey reopened the probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server because of potentially “pertinent” emails on Weiner’s laptop, which were uncovered thanks to an FBI investigation into his sharing of illicit photos. At the time, Weiner was married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
In her election memoir, What Happened, Clinton discusses the moment she learned Weiner’s indiscretions had resulted in the investigation being re-opened. “When we heard this Huma looked stricken,” Clinton wrote. “Anthony had already caused so much heartache. And now this. ‘This man is going to be the death of me,’ [Huma] said, bursting into tears.”