Anthony Weiner - 21 Mo Sentence Too Harsh or Too Soft?

Weiner's problem was that he was never too soft.

If he knew the person was underage that's a problem. How much shit has gone down where he didn't get caught?

Prosecution said he's famous so a harsh sentence would be a deterrence to others which I don't buy.

That said I'd be curious to know how much time he'll realistically spend in jail.

I think the max sentence for his crime was 28 months. It seems that the judge wanted to send a message to Weiner. It's not the max sentence - so I'd say he did ok.

I'll be honest - I thought Anthony and Huma made an odd couple anyway. I know he became a huge liability for his wife and the Clinton campaign. Maybe he will serve his time and fade into obscurity?

@wallanon said it. He knew she was underage and did it anyway. He got what he deserved.

It is a very harsh sentence given that there was never any physical contact of any type, and I think this was the guys first criminal offense. An ordinary guy would not have gotten that harsh of a sentence. Weiner got the harsh sentence because he is so well known publicly that there would have been a huge public outcry if he had gotten a lighter sentence. And also probably because he is such an incredible idiot who had previously done similarly idiotic things of a sexual nature.

I think he got off too soft. He was sexting a minor. This isn't the first time either... The dude is known for this shit.

Hmmmm.... @smith seems very well-versed in the laws regarding underage girls.

He’s a faggot. Well, not literally a faggot. But a jerk. What I don’t get is that Huma seems to still love him.

Carlos Danger

Why did the cunt who protected him while they were married get jail time too?
She intimidated the victims and used her Hilda-beast connection to threaten judges to let him off the first time. I may be a PL but the girls I ogle are getting paid to put up with it.

Sexting with a woman who wants you to sext back and forth is one thing but sexting persons you do not know or just met is another. It is no different that the guy in a raincoat flashing random people on the street.
The severity of his sentence was because this is his 3rd or 4th offense and his ex no longer has enough clout with the Clintons to protect him.

this guy did run for mayor of nyc. if not smart enough to run his personal business through a phone most likely unable to handle heading a huge city.

It feels harsh to me. I would have suggested house arrest with monitored internet usage for a year, or something like that. I'll stick up for Anthony Weiner. I don't like him personally and I would never vote for him, but he's not a hypocrite and he didn't really hurt anyone but himself and his family.

I remember when he was first caught sexting, everyone was comparing him to Elliot Spitzer. But that's not a fair comparison. Spitzer WAS a hypocrite, who prosecuted escort agencies while secretly patronizing hookers himself. And he even misuse taxpayer money in the process. By comparison, Anthony Wiener's misdeeds seem very harmless.

Admittedly, both of them had unforgettable New York Post headlines.

@BurlingtonHF you make several good points. Your contrasts between Weiner and Spitzer are well done. Spitzer was a hypocrite. He probably thought he was above all the little people - and he didn't need to play by their rules. In contrast, Weiner was basically trolling for girls on the internet. If Weiner didn't get involved with underage girls, he would just be a horny guy.

Too harsh. Since there was no porn involved, I'd have suspended the sentence and just had him on probation. Granted it's inappropriate what he did, but I don't think he's a threat to the community after the conviction so let's put a goddam pot smoker in his cell instead.

Here's my thought as to a just punishment. Since he likes young girls, give him an old has never was. Since he was married to Huma, he must have liked her at some point, and since it's been reported that Huma and hillary and more intimate relationship then publicly admitted, here's what should be done.

Sentence him to a daily threesome with Huma and hillary for the 21 months OR he can enjoy Bubba many times daily for the 21 months.

The sick perv was in a position of public trust and was trying to find very young women to "play" with. Not once, not a few times, but often - over several years. He was caught at it twice before, but those times he was caught in contact with adults, not a minor. This creep is a three time loser who may have spent years successfully hooking up with children, or may just be both perverted and stupid. Either way, 21 months seems like a light sentence. I hope this means he will also have to register as a sex offender, and will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.

This guy needs serious therapy.

Only a mentally unbalanced dude would jeopardize his career, his marriage, his relationship with his children, his celebrity and now, his freedom, by doing the things he has done. Without intense therapy, he will not modify his behavior after incarceration. He will simply go back to old patterns. In fact, to get a bigger and bigger rush out of what he does, he will stray further and further into deviant behavior.

He will be back in court in under 4 years under other charges.

Huma is Hillary light. She stayed with a serial nut case in the hopes should could ride his coattails to the capital, the white house, the mayor's mansion or the governor's mansion. Hillary is her idol and Hillary made it happen for herself -- why not Huma?. Huma probably needs therapy to explain why she stayed with this cad as long as she did. She only dumped him when she figured out his star was never going to rise again. Plus, at that point, she had hitched her wagon to Hillary's star.

I found the made-for-cable documentary on Weiner and Huma especially illuminating.

I don't know. It feels like some of you guys are confusing WHO he is with WHAT he did. I don't like him either. He's a scummy guy and I don't agree with 99% of his views. But it wasn't really a very serious offense. And no one was hurt. And he wasn't even a hypocrite about it, unlike Elliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Dennis Hastert, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, etc. He's a sick guy, but so what? It's not like his position of power was abused, really.

People go to jail for sexting?

@BurlingtonHF I agree. Sometimes it is difficult to separate those two the WHO and the WHAT. With Weiner - didn't they find some stuff on a computer that also had some confidential Hillary documents? This would be a very bad idea - and might blur the WHO and the WHAT - especially in light of the other recent discussion about using TUSCL on a work computer.

I'm not sure if there is an ongoing investigation for his computer and confidential documents.

@Cashman1234, yeah, I think his wife used his computer for work purposes a few times, so when the allegation surfaced last year that he had sexted with an underage girl, the FBI seized his computer and uncovered emails between Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton. These new Hillary emails came from a private server, of course, so the FBI investigation was reopened. Since this was late October 2016, the revelations came at the worst possible time for the Clinton campaign. That's my understanding anyway.

Honestly, most of the people who hate Anthony Weiner probably also hate Hillary Clinton... which means that they should really *love* Anthony Weiner, because the aforementioned late-breaking bullshit probably contributed to the few thousand votes in Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Donald Trump needed to win the electoral college. I personally can't stand Trump, but I really hate Hillary Clinton, so I, too, feel like I owe Weiner a debt of gratitude. These guys should give this asshole a break. As you and others have pointed out, he's just a horny perv who couldn't control himself, just like the rest of us here. And his horny perviness may have changed history. It can't be easy to live that down.

Dirk, if you're sexting with a minor, apparently so.

^ But realistically, minors sext each other all the time and often mass distribute them. They don't throw all those millions of boys (and girls) in prison. i guess seeing grown man weiner (see what i did) is much more traumatizing than seeing little boy weiner. i don't want to see any schlong, but i'd probably be more heebie jeebied by the latter.

@BurlingtonHF that's what it was. The entire Clinton email thing has created a big web of deceit. I think it's entirely possible that Weiner cost Clinton the election. I don't know if she would have won without the reopening of the investigation, but I'm sure he didn't help her cause.

Politics can provide for very unusual outcomes - so I'm guessing that Weiner will resurface somewhere in about 2 years.

@Cashman1234, yeah, I don't think we've seen the last of him. The force is strong with this one.

@theDirkDiggler said "They don't throw all those millions of boys (and girls) in prison."

They can't catch all of them, but there have been lots of instances where authorities have in fact prosecuted teen sexters:

https://reason.com/blog/2017/07/14/iowa-…

https://reason.com/blog/2016/09/13/romeo…

https://reason.com/blog/2017/09/18/dick-…