Weiner Sentenced To 21 Months In Prison For Sexting With Minor

Anthony Weiner. Image by Getty Images

By Daniel J. Solomon September 25, 2017

Anthony Weiner Image by Getty Images

Former congressman Anthony Weiner was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison for exchanging lewd messages with a North Carolina teenager.

Weiner, who represented New York as a Democrat and later ran for New York City mayor, was felled by a series of sexting scandals—the worst of which occurred last year as he was prosecuted for sending obscene photos to a minor.

Weiner read a statement before the sentencing referring to himself as “a very sick man.” He had pled guilty in May, asking along with estranged wife Huma Abedin that he be spared prison.

Abedin, a top aide to former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, filed for divorce after his guilty plea.

Weiner’s attorneys had implied that his teenage accuser might have had political motives in exposing him for his sexting—a charge that prosecutors used to argue that Weienr was not owning up for his actions.

“He initially denied his conduct, he suffered personal and professional consequences, he publicly apologized and claimed reform,” the prosectors wrote in a statement. “Yet he continued to engage in the very conduct he swore off.”

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO