On Monday, child sex predator Anthony Weiner — once a Democratic lawmaker in Congress — will meet his fate.
It won’t be pretty.
Weiner, 53, will be sentenced Monday for sending graphic sexual material to a 15-year-old girl. In court papers filed this week, prosecutors say Weiner repeatedly convinced the underage girl to strip naked and fondle herself while he watched over Skype.
While Weiner faces 10 years in prison, federal prosecutors are — for some reason — asking for a sentence of around two years. Still, they outline Weiner’s guilt in graphic terms.
“The defendant did far more than exchange typed words on a lifeless cellphone screen with a faceless stranger,” prosecutors wrote to the judge. “Transmitting obscenity to a minor to induce her to engage in sexually explicit conduct by video chat and photo — is far from mere ‘sexting.'”
Of course, Weiner’s attorneys say their client, who pleaded guilty to all charges, is now a new man. Gone are the demons that made him repeatedly text young women — the first time he was caught he lost his job in Congress. They say Weiner suffers from a “deep sickness” and that being in prison won’t cure him.
And, like all those connected with Hillary Clinton (Weiner’s soon-to-be former wife is Huma Abedin, longtime aide to the two-time presidential loser), Weiner’s lawyers in a memo to the judge blame a vast right-wing conspiracy for his downfall, the Associated Press reports:
The memo also suggested Weiner himself was a victim of the scandal, saying the North Carolina high school student initiated contact with him because she “hoped somehow to influence the U.S. presidential election” and write a tell-all book.
Some legal observers doubt the wisdom of the defense in questioning the girl’s motivations.
The strategy “is fraught with peril since an attack on a victim can be read by the judge as undermining the defendant’s claim that he has accepted full responsibility,” said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor. He added that he expects Weiner to get jail time, “given the nature of the charges and the lack of any real mitigating factors here.”
Weiner’s fall from grace was spectacular. In 2011, he sent out an explicit photo of Weiner Jr. on Twitter — he meant to send a direct message but instead posted it on his page for the world to see. He quickly deleted it, then claimed to have been hacked, but he was forced to resign after admitting that he had carried on sexual online relationships with half a dozen women.
Weiner ran for mayor of New York City in 2013, but was once again caught texting women his tiny Weiner, this time under the online moniker “Carlos Danger.” And just as Hillary was battling Donald Trump in what was then a tight race, thousands of messages on his laptop prompted then-FBI Director James Comey to announce an investigation — which Clinton and others claim cost her the election.
Writes the AP:
In a letter to the court, Weiner expressed his “profound” sorrow for endangering the welfare of a girl he admits knowing was underage. The fallout included news his wife had filed for divorce in May on the same day he pleaded guilty.
“My continued acting out over the years crushed the aspirations of my wife and ruined our marriage,” he said. His young son, he added, “will forever have to answer questions about the public and private failings of his father.”
But the prosecutors say this, according to the New York Post:
During the latter two Skype sessions, on February 18 and 23, 2016, and in a Snapchat communication on March 9, the defendant used graphic and obscene language to ask the Minor Victim to display her naked body and touch herself, which she did.
Weiner, 53, also sent the girl an “obscene message” using an app called Confide, in which he described “what he would do to her, if she were 18,” court papers say.
“Part and parcel of these disturbing — and criminal — exchanges, the defendant also sent the Minor Victim adult pornography,” according to the feds.
Time for Tony and his Weiner to go to jail.