Snoods
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Anthony Weiner, the former Democratic congressman whose sexting scandals ended his political career and embroiled him in a tumultuous F.B.I. investigation of Hillary Clinton before the election, pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday, crying openly as he admitted to conduct that he knew was “as morally wrong as it was unlawful.”
The plea agreement ended a federal investigation into a series of sexually explicit pictures and messages that Mr. Weiner sent last year to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.
It capped the long, tortured downfall of Mr. Weiner, who ruined a once-promising career in Congress and then spoiled various attempts at resurrecting his reputation, all through his uncontrolled habit of using social media and texts to send explicit images to women.
It also cost him his marriage: His estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, filed for divorce from Mr. Weiner on Friday in New York, according to two people with knowledge of the action.
“I engaged in obscene communications with this teenager,” Mr. Weiner said, his voice high and shaky, and his body trembling. Those communications “included sharing explicit images and encouraging her to engage in sexually explicit conduct,” just as he had done with adult women, he said.
Mr. Weiner, 52, will have to register as a sex offender where he works and lives, and he may face a prison term. He pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors said in the plea agreement that a sentence in the range of 21 to 27 months would be “fair and appropriate.” Mr. Weiner is to be sentenced on Sept. 8 in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
[...]
Mr. Weiner told Judge Preska that from the time he was in Congress through the first half of last year, “I’ve compulsively sought attention from women who contacted me on social media, and I engaged with many of them in both sexual and nonsexual conversation.”
Reports of the federal investigation surfaced in September after DailyMail.com reported that Mr. Weiner had engaged in an online relationship with the girl, which included explicit messages sent over social media and suggestive texts.
[...]
Mr. Weiner told the court that in January 2016, he was contacted by — and began exchanging online messages with — “a stranger who said that she was a high school student, and who I understood to be 15 years old.”
“I knew this was as morally wrong as it was unlawful,” he added.
Mr. Weiner, choking up and rubbing his forehead, said that last fall he “came to grips for the first time with the depths of my sickness."
“I — I had hit bottom,” he said. “Through treatment I found the courage to take a moral inventory of my defects.” He said he began a program of recovery and mental health treatment that he was continuing.
“I accept full responsibility for my conduct,” he told Judge Preska. “I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse.”
Mr. Weiner said he had apologized to those he had hurt, including the teenage girl “whom I mistreated so badly, and I am committed to making amends to all those I have harmed.”
[...]
An effort to resurrect his career progressed in 2013 as he began his candidacy for mayor of New York. But that, too, collapsed after the emergence of additional explicit online messages.
Mr. Weiner’s marriage to Ms. Abedin fell apart after new suggestive text messages surfaced in August, including one with an image of Mr. Weiner’s crotch as he lay next to the couple’s son, who was 4.
Remember the hilarious pseudonym "Carlos Danger" he used when emailing pictures of his penis? You can create your own sexting pseudonym by typing your name into this Carlos Danger name generator !
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...widget_to_get_a_name_like_anthony_weiner.html
Mine is Fabricio Violence! :hilarious: I may legally change my given name, that is glorious.
Edit: Just wanted to add, his "Carlos Danger" sexting fiasco was before it was known he was sexting minors. There is nothing funny about sexting minors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/nyregion/anthony-weiner-guilty-plea-sexting.html
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