Ex-congressman Weiner released from prison after sexting scandal

[February 18, 2019]  (Reuters) - Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman who helped play a role in Hillary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, has been released from federal prison after serving about 14 months for exchanging sexually explicit texts with a 15-year-old girl.

Weiner, 54, has been released from the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, and is under the supervision of a residential re-entry management office in Brooklyn, according to prison records.

The seven-term congressman who ran unsuccessfully several times for New York City mayor will be free on May 14, records show, about three months earlier than his 21-month sentence. He had pleaded guilty to sending the texts and had faced up to 10 years in prison.

The FBI discovered a trove of emails belonging to his then-wife, Huma Abedin, a senior aide to Hillary Clinton, on Weiner's laptop. Then-FBI Director James Comey announced just weeks before the presidential election that his agency was reopening an investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was U.S. secretary of state.

Former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner departs U.S. Federal Court, following his sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of sending obscene messages to a minor, ending an investigation into a "sexting" scandal that played a role in last year's U.S. presidential election, in New York, U.S., September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Clinton said the move contributed to her stunning loss to Republican Donald Trump.

Abedin filed for divorce. The couple has a 7-year-old son, Jordan.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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