Who is Anthony Weiner? Former New York congressman sentenced to jail for sexting underage girl
ANTHONY Weiner is a former US congressman who has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for sending sexually explicit messages to an underage girl.
He is also linked to Hillary Clinton's email scandal due to his ex-wife. Here's what you need to know...
Who is Anthony Weiner?
The 53-year-old is a former Congressman from Brooklyn, New York. At age 27 he held his first political post and became the youngest councilman on New York City Council in 1991.
In 1998 he ran for Congress from New York's 9th congressional district. But after his first sext scandal broke he resigned as a congressman in 2011.
He had long harboured a dream to become New York's mayor and had ran for the post in 2005 but failed to get in.
He tried again in 2013 but lost the vote after his sexting scandal broke.
Weiner married Huma Abedin in 2010 with former US President Bill Clinton officiating. But she separated from him in 2016 due to his continued sexting. They have a son Jordan Zain Weiner who was born in 2011.
It is his colourful private life that has astounded America and a 2016 documentary entitled 'Weiner' detailed it in full.
How was Anthony Weiner involved in Hillary Clinton's email investigation?
During the probe into Weiner's sexting, police seized his mobile phone and other computers which were also used by his then-wife, Huma Abedin, a close aide and personal friend of Mrs Clinton.
On October 28, 2016, FBI director James Comey advised Congress that emails which were sent from the computer could contain material that was "pertinent" to the Hillary Clinton email controversy.
The disgraced New York congressman is believed to have shared the laptop with Ms Abedin, 40, who allegedly forwarded some of her emails from her secure government address to a Yahoo account as it was easier to print them from there.
The relaunched probe into Mrs Clinton centred around whether these messages contained classified information.
Mrs Clinton faced a long-running probe into her use of a personal email address for her work communications. It finally concluded in July with the FBI stating that although she had left herself open to hackers, there were no grounds for prosecution.
After the scandal was reignited - it again was announced by the FBI Mrs Clinton had no case to answer. However, the constant questioning was seen as a contributing factor in Donald Trump's victory over Mrs Clinton in the US Presidential election.
How much sexting has Weiner done?
The disgraced congressman has been involved in threesexting scandals involving many women. The first, dubbed Weinergate, erupted when he used Twitter to send an explicit picture to a woman aged 21 in Seattle, Washington. He denied media reports that he had posted the image but did concede to sending a link to the photo and other explicit pictures to women both before and after he wed Huma.
He also texted a girl of 17 from Delaware which was investigated by police. Although he admitted communicating with the girl he denied sending inappropriate messages. A shirtless, cropped picture of Weiner was sent to another woman over the internet. He admitted sending more pictures, one of which was sexually graphic.
Afterwards, he held a press conference to apologise for it and said he had "engaged in several inappropriate conversations" over social media and had exchanged explicit messages with "about six women over three years".
He denied having any physical relationship with any of the women but the furore forced him to resign from Congress in 2011.
The second scandal blew up in 2013 during his campaign to become mayor of NYC.
He was alleged to have used the alias Carlos Danger when he sent pictures to a 22-year-old woman during 2012 and 2013. They were released by the website The Dirty. At a news conference, he said: "I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out and today they have."
He admitted sexting three women after his resignation from Congress and said there had been "six to ten" in total. He did not drop out of the mayoral race but lost decisively instead.
Sexting reared its ugly head again in 2016 when the New York Post reported that he had sent pictures to another woman in 2015. His wife Huma announced their separation.
On September 21, 2016, it emerged Weiner had been sexting a girl of 15. And it was the FBI's investigation into his electronic devices which is believed to have been behind the relaunch of the probe into Hillary Clinton's email scandal.
One year on, on September 25, Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in jail after pleading guilty to the charges.
His lawyers had requested he be given probation rather than jail but US District Judge Denise Cote ruled: "This is a serious crime that deserves serious punishment."
She added: "Weiner has a disease. He has a compulsivity. Some say a sex addiction."
