Anthony Weiner is a former member of the United States House of Representatives from New York City who has been involved in multiple scandals related to sexting. The first scandal began when Weiner was a Democratic U. He used the social media website Twitter to send a link that contained a sexually suggestive picture of himself to a year-old woman. After initially denying reports that he had posted the image, he admitted that he sent a link to the photo, which was described by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as an "erection barely covered by a man's underwear" [ 1 ] and by iPolitics as a "man-bulge in boxer briefs".
He denied ever having met or having had a physical relationship with any of the women. On June 16, , Weiner announced his intention to resign from Congress effective June Weiner returned to politics in April when he entered the New York City mayoral race. After additional pictures of Weiner were released, Weiner admitted sexting at least three women since his resignation from Congress. He remained in the race until the end, placing fifth in the Democratic primary. His laptop was seized and emails related to the Hillary Clinton email controversy were found on it, causing a controversy late in the presidential election.
On May 19, , Weiner pled guilty to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor. His wife, Huma Abedin , filed for divorce prior to Weiner's guilty plea. In September, he was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. On May 27, , Weiner used his public Twitter account to send a link to a photo on yfrog. On June 1, , Weiner gave a series of interviews in which he denied sending the photo and suggested that someone, perhaps a political opponent, had hacked into his accounts and published the photo.
He suggested that the image might be doctored, saying, "Maybe it did start being a photo of mine and now looks something different or maybe it is from another account. Capitol Police to investigate the incident [ 14 ] but said he had retained a private security firm to look into this matter because he felt it was a prank, not a crime.
Evidence later revealed that a group of self-described conservatives [ 16 ] had been monitoring Weiner's communications with women for at least three months. Two false identities of underage girls had been created by unknown parties to solicit communication with Weiner and the women he was contacting.
