Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner released from halfway house

ByEyewitness News WABC logo
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner released from halfway house
Dave Evans reports on the release of former congressman Anthony Weiner.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner was released from a halfway house in the Bronx on Tuesday after completing his prison sentence for illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl.

"It's good to be out," he said as he walked out of the halfway house. "I hope to get back to my family and make up for some lost time...I hope to be able to live a life of integrity and service, and I'm glad this chapter of my life is behind me."

Weiner refused to answer any more questions walked to a waiting car.

Last month, Weiner was designated a Level 1 sex offender by a judge.

The New York Democrat, a once-rising star who also ran for mayor, was convicted of having illicit online contact with a North Carolina teen in 2017.

He began serving a 21-month prison sentence that November at the Federal Medical Center Devens, located about 40 miles west of Boston in Ayer, Massachusetts.

Weiner, 54, must register for a minimum of 20 years. He is required to verify his address every year, notify the state within 10 days of moving and visit a police station every three years to have a new picture taken.

He still faces three years of court supervision.

Because of his low-level designation, Weiner's information won't show up in the state's online sex offender registry, but it will be available via a toll-free telephone number.

At his sentencing, Weiner said he'd been a "very sick man for a very long time" and said he had a sex addiction.

Weiner's lawyer said the former lawmaker likely exchanged thousands of messages with hundreds of women over the years and was communicating with up to 19 women when he encountered the teenager.

It wasn't the first time Weiner had been caught acting inappropriately.

After sending a lewd picture of himself to a college student in 2011, Weiner claimed his account had been hacked, then admitted online interactions with at least six other women while married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Weiner resigned from Congress, only to try for a political comeback with a run for New York City mayor in 2013. Then came the revelation that Weiner had used the alias "Carlos Danger" to send explicit photos to at least one woman after resigning from Congress.

Weiner received less than 5 percent of the Democratic primary vote.

Abedin filed for divorce from Weiner in 2017. But the two, who have a young son together, later agreed to discontinue the case in order to negotiate their separation privately.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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