Former congressman Anthony Weiner has pleaded guilty to transmitting sexual material to a 15-year-old girl and agreed to serve years in prison for the felony.

In a New York court, Weiner agreed Friday not to appeal any sentence between 21 and 27 months in prison. The judge told him he would have to register as a sex offender and give up his iPhone as part of a plea agreement.

Weiner cried as he apologized to the teenager with whom he exchanged sexually explicit texts. “I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse,” the former Democratic congressman said.

Weiner, 52, was a rising political star when his career was ended in 2011 by revelations that he had shared sexually explicit images with multiple women. His political ambitions were again foiled in 2013 when another sexting scandal was revealed.

Then, in September last year, a girl in North Carolina told a tabloid news site she had exchanged lewd messages with Weiner over several months, prompting an investigation by the FBI.

With months to go before the presidential election, Weiner’s alleged crimes took on greater weight as his wife, Huma Abedin, was an aide to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The FBI investigation of his laptop led to the discovery of a cache of emails from Abedin to Clinton – a finding that prompted FBI director James Comey to announce, days before the election, that his agency was reopening its closed investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Comey said the emails contained nothing new with just two days to go before the election, but Clinton said her election loss to Republican Donald Trump was partly because of Comey’s announcement.

In court Friday, Wiener plead guilty and responded steadily to more than a dozen administrative questions as he stood before a packed courtroom.



His composure shattered when he began reading a prepared statement confessing to his crimes. Six words into the statement, he broke down in tears.

He paused, then continued to read out an emotional confession, that also included repeated apologies to the victim and his family and friends.

Weiner said he “compulsively sought attention from women” who contacted him on social media from when he became a congressman, in 1999, and continuing into the first half of 2016.

“These destructive impulses brought great devastation to my family and friends and destroyed my life’s dream in public service,” Weiner said.

He continued to fight back tears as he read the statement, which surveyed the crime – which he called “as morally wrong as it was unlawful” – and its impact on the victim and his life.

The charges could bring a sentence of up to 10 years but because of the plea agreement, Weiner is expected to serves less time. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 8 September.

Weiner said the “world around me fell apart” amid the scandal, which was extensively documented by the media. He apologized to the 15-year-old who he shared sexual images with “just as I had done and continued to do with adult women”.



“This fall, I came to grips for the first time with the depths of my sickness,” Weiner said. He said he entered a treatment program which he adheres to to this day.

“I, I had hit bottom,” he said. “Through treatment I found the courage to take a moral inventory of my defects.”