New York - Former U.S. Representative
Anthony Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Monday
for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl,
setting off a scandal that played a role in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election.
Weiner, 53, started to cry as soon as the sentence was
announced by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan. His
wife Huma Abedin, an aide to Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton, was not in the courtroom and has filed for
divorce.
He pleaded guilty in May to transferring obscene material to
a minor, and agreed he would not appeal any sentence of 27
months or less.
"I was a very sick man for a very long time, but I'm also
responsible for the damage I have done," Weiner read from a
statement in court before he was sentenced. He said he was being
treated, and asked Cote to spare him prison and sentence him to
probation so he could continue treatment.
Weiner's lawyer, Arlo Devlin-Brown, said that while Weiner
exchanged sexually explicit messages with many women, all of the
others were adults.
Cote said she believed Weiner was suffering from an
addiction, and was serious about being treated. However, she
said it was important to deter others from committing similar
crimes.
"There is the opportunity to make a statement that could
protect other minors," she said.
"We are of course disappointed that Anthony was sentenced to
prison, particularly so given that Judge Cote found that the
treatment program Anthony had engaged in for the past year was
showing great promise and should be continued," Weiner's lawyer,
Devlin-Brown, said in a statement Monday afternoon.
Weiner declined to speak to reporters as he left the
courtroom. He was ordered to surrender by November 6.
The investigation into Weiner’s exchanges with a North
Carolina high school student roiled the 2016 U.S. presidential
campaign in its final days, when authorities found emails on
Weiner’s laptop from his wife.
Weiner, who wore his wedding band at the sentencing, and
Abedin have a son, Jordan, who is 5-years-old.
The discovery of the emails prompted James Comey, then
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to announce in
late October that the agency was reopening its investigation
into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was US secretary of state.
Clinton has said the announcement contributed to her upset
loss to Republican Donald Trump, who had accused her of
endangering national security by using the private server.
President Trump fired Comey in May amid the FBI’s probe into
whether his campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Clinton, a
claim the president has denied.
Weiner represented parts of New York City in the U.S. House
of Representatives for 12 years before resigning in 2011, after
it emerged that he had exchanged sexually explicit messages with
adult women.
In 2013, Weiner ran for New York City mayor, but dropped out
of the race when more lewd messages became public.