Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin to settle their divorce privately

ByEyewitness News WABC logo
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Anthony Weiner and wife Huma Abedin attend the 12th Annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards at Spring Studios on Monday, Nov. 2, 2015, in New York.
AP-AP

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Disgraced former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin are no longer proceeding with their case in divorce court.

A joint request was filed Wednesday with the judge overseeing the case, asking to discontinue the divorce case.

According to Abedin's attorney, the move is to ensure the proceedings have a minimal impact on their child, and both parties want to finalize their divorce swiftly and privately.

Abedin filed a divorce from Weiner in May and listed it as "contested," which meant they had to negotiate in front of a judge. But now the parties can re-file as "uncontested" and won't have to make their discussion public.

"In order to reduce any impact of these proceedings on their child, the parties have decided to reach a settlement swiftly and privately," Abedin's lawyer Charles Fox Miller said in a statement. Weiner's lawyer echoed the statement.

The couple has a 6-year-old son. Weiner reported to prison in November to serve a 21-month sentence for sexting with a 15-year-old girl.

Weiner, a Democrat, resigned his U.S. House seat in 2011 amid a sexting controversy involving women, only to have new allegations doom his 2013 run for New York mayor.

Abedin became ensnared in the Clinton email probe. Then-FBI Director James Comey announced in late October 2016 that he was reopening the investigation of the former Democratic presidential nominee's use of a private computer server after emails between Clinton and Abedin were found on Weiner's computer amid the sexting probe. The FBI concluded that neither Weiner nor Abedin had committed a crime in their handling of the email.

Clinton has called Comey's intervention "the determining factor" in her defeat.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.