Former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner is expected to plead guilty on Friday to charges related to a “sexting” investigation involving a minor.
Weiner will plead guilty to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, the New York Times reported. Weiner surrendered to the FBI early Friday morning, according to the newspaper.
The FBI had been investigating whether Weiner, whose political career ended as the result of a separate sexting scandal, had exchanged inappropriate photos with a 15-year-old North Carolina girl.
Weiner’s sexting scandal also found its way into disrupting the 2016 presidential election. FBI agents seized the former congressman’s laptop—where the found emails sent to his wife Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton.
Those emails were at the center of an announcement by then-FBI Director James Comey, delivered just 11 days before Election Day, that a new investigation into Clinton’s emails had been started. Clinton recently said the re-opening of the investigation contributed to her loss in the election to President Donald Trump. An analysis by FiveThirtyEight shows she is likely correct.
Weiner resigned from Congress in June 2011 after the discovery of an explicit picture of him sent over Twitter. Weiner first claimed his Twitter account had been hacked but then admitted he had sent the photo—and others—to women online. Weiner attempted to run for mayor of New York City in 2013; however, the effort was derailed after more explicit messages surfaced.
The plea deal could mean Weiner will have to register as a sex offender, but that has not been determined yet, according to the Times.
The charge has a potential prison sentence of zero to 10 years in prison, and his sentence will be determined by a judge, the newspaper reported.
