Anthony Weiner has been busted again for allegedly lewd online behavior, only this time the fallout could cost him more than his marriage to Hillary Clinton bodywoman Huma Abedin.
The Daily Mail reports that Weiner allegedly carried on a months-long online sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl he knew to be underage. The girl, whose identity is being redacted due to her age, claimed she engaged in video chats with Weiner during which the former Democratic congressman asked her to say his name while pleasuring herself. Weiner also reportedly asked her to dress up as a “school girl” and engage in “rape fantasies.”
The online relationship allegedly started in January 2016, while the girl was a sophomore in high school, months before Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, announced she was filing for divorce after photos leaked of Weiner exchanging lewd photos with another woman online, including one of a shirtless Weiner lying in bed next to his 4-year-old son.
The Mail report contains photos of message Weiner sent the underage girl via an app designed to protect user privacy by automatically deleting messages after they are read. Some of the exchanges are quite explicit. For example, Weiner messaged the girl about how he “would bust that tight pussy hard and so often that you would leak and limp for a week.”
Weiner, who sent messages under the name “T Dog,” repeatedly sent shirtless photos of himself to the girl, and described how “hard” he got from thinking about her. At one point, Weiner indicated that his exchanges with the girl could be problematic, writing: “If anyone would get the wrong impression we should say goodbye now.” But the conversations continued.
Weiner acknowledged exchanging “flirtatious” messages with the teen girl, and in a statement to the Mail, lamented his “terrible judgement” in the past and said he was “filled with regret and heartbroken for those I have hurt.” He also said, in specific reference to the Mail story, that he has “likely been the subject of a hoax.”
This is merely the latest in a long series of revelations about Weiner’s lewd online behavior, but it is potentially the most damaging due to the girl’s age. Adults who receive nude or sexual images of an underage child can be charged with possessing child pornography. Some states have sought to clarify the law so that it does not also apply, for example, to teenagers who receive lewd images from underage individuals, but penalties for adults remain.
In Weiner’s home state of New York, the law prohibiting online “child enticement” is fairly straightforward. Individuals can be charged with a crime for communicating over the internet with someone under the age of 17, and enticing the child to engage in sexual conduct. New York laws also prohibit the use of a computer network to engage in sexually explicit communication with a minor.
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