This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Former congressman Anthony Weiner has pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, according to the court and a spokesman for a law firm representing Weiner in the case.
Weiner appeared Friday before U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska to enter his plea, David Schaefer, a spokesman for the law firm Covington & Burling, whose attorney, Arlo Devlin-Brown, is representing Weiner, said in an email. The New York Times, citing an unnamed source, earlier reported that as part of a plea agreement, Weiner planned to plead guilty to the charge.
He surrendered to the FBI on Friday morning, the FBI said.
The criminal case involves a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina who told the Daily Mail last year that Weiner had been engaging in sexually explicit conversations with her online.
The New York Times reported the charge carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; as part of the plea deal, Weiner might be forced to register as a sex offender, though that has not been confirmed.
During the FBI investigation into the case, agents seized Weiner's laptop, where they discovered numerous emails that Hillary Clinton had sent to Weiner's estranged wife, Huma Abedin, who was a top Clinton aide. It prompted an announcement from then-FBI Director James Comey in the days leading up to the presidential election, saying that the agency was reopening its investigation into Clinton's emails.
He then announced that no charges would be brought in the case. But Clinton, and others, have since said the scandal was partly the reason she lost the election to Donald Trump.
Weiner, a Democrat who represented a New York City congressional district, resigned from his House seat in 2011 after he accidentally tweeted an explicit photo of himself that he had intended to send to a supporter.