Just last week we reported that Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner both showed up to a Manhattan courthouse to go before a divorce judge.
Abedin’s lawyers filed the divorce papers, captioned “Anonymous vs. Anonymous,” in Manhattan Supreme Court just hours after a weepy Weiner walked into nearby federal court — still wearing his wedding ring — and pleaded guilty May 19 to sexting with a North Carolina teenager.As for the consequences of pleading guilty, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that federal prosecutors requested a prison sentence Wednesday of 21 to 27 months for Weiner, arguing the conduct to which he has pleaded guilty — transferring obscene material to a minor -amounts to more than “merely a ‘sexting’ case.”
The sentencing submission claims that because Mr. Weiner encouraged the then 15-year-old girl to “sexually perform for him” on Skype and Snapchat, his punishment should go beyond the probation Mr. Weiner’s attorneys have requested. Mr. Weiner is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept 25.
The charge to which he pleaded has no mandatory minimum prison sentence but carries up to 10 years in prison.
“The defendant did far more than exchange typed words on a lifeless cellphone screen with a faceless stranger,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda Kramer and Stephanie Lake, in their submission filed in Manhattan federal court. They also noted Mr. Weiner “used graphic and obscene language to ask the Minor Victim to display her naked body and touch herself,” sent her a message telling her “what he would do to her, if she were 18” and sent her “adult pornography.”In the filing, prosecutors also dispute Mr. Weiner’s attorneys’ position that he engaged with the teenager “in spite of” her age.
“Weiner acknowledged that the age of the victim did matter to him,” they wrote, suggesting he said as much to a court-appointed evaluator. Additionally, they alleged he “has acknowledged an interest in legal, adult, teen-themed pornography.”
Noting that Mr. Weiner once co-sponsored a bill to require sex offenders to register their email and instant message addresses with the National Sex Offender Registry, prosecutors say his engagement with the minor “suggests a dangerous level of denial and lack of self-control” that merits a prison sentence.Hilariously, Weiner will also have to register his email and IM addresses with the National Sex Offender Registry, thanks to a law with his name on it.
[Note: This post was written by Matt Palumbo. He is a co-author of the new book A Paradoxical Alliance: Islam and the Left, and can be found on Twitter @MattPalumbo12]