Congressman Anthony Weiner has been 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 US presidential election
Congressman Anthony Weiner has been 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 US presidential election.
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Anthony Weiner
Weiner, 53, started to cry as soon as the sentence was announced by US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty in May to transferring obscene messages to a minor, and agreed he would not appeal any sentence of 27 months or less.
Weiner’s lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to probation rather than prison, saying he acted out of the ‘depths of an uncontrolled sickness’ and was now being treated.
The investigation into Weiner’s exchanges with a North Carolina high school student roiled the 2016 US presidential campaign in its final days, when authorities found emails on Weiner’s laptop from his wife Huma Abedin, an aide to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.