Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that ANTHONY WEINER was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to 21 months in prison for transferring obscene material to a minor. WEINER pled guilty on May 19, 2017, before U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska. Today’s sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote.
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said: “Anthony Weiner, a former Congressman and candidate for Mayor, asked a girl who he knew to be 15 years old to display her naked body and engage in sexually explicit behavior for him online. Justice demands that this type of conduct be prosecuted and punished with time in prison. Today, Anthony Weiner received a just sentence that was appropriate for his crime.”
In sentencing ANTHONY WEINER, Judge Cote said: “This is a serious crime that deserves serious punishment.”
According to the documents filed in this case and statements made in court proceedings:
Between January and March 2016, WEINER used online messaging and video chat applications to communicate with a minor girl he knew to be 15 years old (the “Minor Victim”) and to transfer obscene material to her. Those communications began the evening of January 23, 2016, when the Minor Victim initiated contact with WEINER by sending him a direct message on Twitter. That night, the Minor Victim and WEINER exchanged a series of messages. Early in the exchange, the Minor Victim revealed to WEINER that she was in high school. As their communications progressed, the Minor Victim made plain that she was a minor. Despite that knowledge, WEINER participated in increasingly suggestive exchanges. The exchanges occurred over Facebook messenger, Skype, Kik, Confide, and Snapchat, the latter three of which are messaging and photo-sharing applications that delete messages and images once viewed.
Between February 17 and 23, 2016, WEINER and the Minor Victim participated in three video chat sessions on Skype. The Minor Victim made clear during those chat sessions that she was not just a minor; she was, in fact, only 15 years old. Nevertheless, during the latter two Skype sessions, on February 18 and 23, 2016, and in a Snapchat communication on March 9, 2016, the defendant used graphic and obscene language to ask the Minor Victim to display her naked body and touch herself, which she did. He also sent an obscene message to the Minor Victim on Confide, describing what he would do to her if she were 18. As part of these criminal exchanges, the defendant also sent the Minor Victim adult pornography, or a link thereto. In approximately March 2016, after several months of intermittent exchanges, communications between the defendant and the Minor Victim largely stopped.
In addition to the prison term, WEINER, 53, of New York, New York, was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
Mr. Kim praised and thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Victims Division of the New York City Police Department for their outstanding work.
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