Former US Rep. Anthony Weiner faces charges in sexting case

AP logo
Friday, May 19, 2017
Former US Rep. Anthony Weiner faces charges in sexting case
Former US Rep. Anthony Weiner faces charges in sexting case

NEW YORK, New York -- Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner turned himself into the FBI this morning and is due in federal court in Manhattan at 11 a.m. to plead guilty to a single count of transferring obscene material to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.

Prosecutors declined to immediately release additional details about the charges against him.

The FBI began investigating Weiner in September after the North Carolina girl told a tabloid news site that she and the disgraced former politician had exchanged lewd messages for several months.

She also accused him of asking her to undress on camera.

The investigation led FBI agents to seize his laptop computer, which led to the discovery of a new cache of emails that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had sent to Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife.

In October, just days before the election, FBI director James Comey stunned the country by announcing that his agency was reopening its closed investigation into Clinton's handling of State Department business on a private email server so it could analyze the newly discovered correspondence.

That inquiry was brief. Comey announced shortly before the election that the new emails contained nothing to change his view that Clinton could not be charged with a crime. But Clinton partly blamed her election loss to Republican Donald Trump on Comey's announcement.

Weiner's lawyer, Arlo Devlin Brown, didn't immediately return a message Friday.

Report a typo to the ABC13 staff