Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Should politician Anthony Weiner get prison for sexting teen?

Episode Date: May 19, 2017

Former New York congressman Anthony Weiner could get up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to send obscene messages to a 15-year-old girl. But are his repeated online sex infractions — including his infamous underwear tweet — just symptoms of a sickness that should be treated, not punished? Nancy Grace and Alan Duke look at Weiner’s case in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. long time and powerful Hillary Clinton advisor Huma Abedin. I love him. I have forgiven him. In 2013, during a comeback effort as he ran for mayor, Weiner was caught for a second time sexting with women under the alias Carlos Danger. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Anthony Weiner caught in yet another sexting scandal. Sexting a young woman 15 years old. Abedin said said I have made the decision to separate from my husband. Uma Abedin is crawling right back to Anthony

Weiner. Sources say the breakup was more for the optics for the Clinton campaign. Transferring obscene material to a minor he well plead guilty. The prosecutor is saying 21 to 27 months in prison. Does it never end with this guy? I mean, many people think he single-handedly brought down the Democratic Party and let Donald Trump skip into the White House jubilantly. Now, you know, I don't talk about politics because I hate politics. I think Republicans and Democrats and Greens and everybody just lie through their teeth. So I hold my nose and vote and never reveal my vote. But this Anthony Weiner, aka Anthony Weiner, is now set to plead guilty to sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Now, remember, Weiner married to the right hand of Hillary Clinton.

Presidential. Hopeful. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories, and it never ends with this guy. Weiner is set to plead guilty to charges He sexted with a minor for at least a year. And when you hear what he said to her along the lines of, I'm going to hit it, i.e. your private parts so hard, you will leak and limp for a week. Let's let that sink in just for a moment. A grown man married, texting that to a little girl. He used the name Carlos Danger. I'm just so happy to repeat that. He wrote to her

on an instant messaging app, Kik, also using the handle T-D and hard i would bust that tight p why so hard and so often you would leak and limp for a week okay i just read it again alan but luckily i memorized it at the time it happened with me the du, Alan Duke, joining me from his posh L.A. penthouse pad. Yeah. I can only, I always imagine it as being like, who do I love so much? He was like a 60s, Austin Powers. I always imagine your place to kind of be like Austin Powers groovy pad. Yeah, I'll send you pictures.

No, no, don't. Please don't. Let me just keep it in my mind'll send you pictures. No, don't. Please don't. Let me just keep it in my mind the way it is. Okay, don't ruin it for me. We'll do this on video sometime. Please don't. Because I can see your clothes on a string drying behind you. Actually, they're about three feet away on the clothesline outside.

I thought I was the only one that still washed their own clothes. I knocked them off. Can we get back to Weiner slash Weiner slash Carlos Danger slash T-Dog slash Hard? I mean, his wife is in the White House on the threshold of power, the key to power in the most powerful and influential country in the world. And Carlos Danger brings the whole thing down. Let's just start at the beginning. Okay, here's this guy with rape fantasies asking this little girl over Skype to dress up in plaid skirts for role play with him as the teacher.

I can only imagine what he was teaching. Okay, your turn. Jump in. The significance in history of this guy is actually much bigger than Wiener himself. It's Wiener. I thought it was Wiener. On South Park, they call him Wiener.

Oh, well, if it's on South Park, then it must be true. Go ahead. Well, that's where I get my news. You do know that. Yes, I know that. I know that, and that and i respect that his places in history is this back in october you remember the fbi director going out and acknowledging that they've reopened the investigation of hillary clinton's email servers because they had to examine a computer for possibly some leaked confidential emails that turned out not to be there. But that 10 or 11 days before the election, some people, not everybody, but a lot of people are saying it was that that changed the momentum of the election.

Whether Hillary would have lost anyway or not, we'll never know. Now, what about the allegations that Huma, his wife, Hillary Clinton's aide, right hand, you always see her about 10 feet behind Clinton carrying her fancy pocketbook. But didn't Huma, the wife, who has a pristine reputation, I might add, pristine. Well, not pristine. No, there are some things that people say about her. We can get into that. Well, they can say it, but she has never been arrested, nothing. So I talk a lot of that talk about her up to cattiness, all right? And again, I'm not supporting anybody for president. I think they're all horrible. But of course, there's one that's less horrible than the other. But can I get back to this? Isn't it true that she, Huma, sent the husband, Anthony Weiner, a lot of confidential emails?

And if so, why? No. Comey, in a hearing a couple of weeks ago, said that there had been thousands of them. They had the FBI. Yeah. And then the FBI director at the time then came out and said, no, actually, I misspoke. That did not happen. That's right. Ironically, President Trump recently just this week cited that as one of the reasons that Comey had to go because he had slighted Huma Abedin. But let me tell you what is shocking in the story to me back in the middle of the presidential election back in august about the time of the democratic convention is when this all came out this latest case against carlos danger

and aka t-dog aka hard aka what was the other one so this blows up in the middle of the campaign in august a very important month that's when you kind of like have to be ahead. And the day after it came out, Huma announced that she was leaving her husband, that they were splitting up. But you know what I found out since? It didn't happen. They are back together. They didn't split up. They did for what they call optics.

But now they're trying to make it work again okay you know what don't use your la slash dc bs on me optic but you said it you repeated i guess you mean a visual that they split for yes pr purposes to make us all think they split oh okay you know let's take a look at this from the beginning. From the very first explicit photos to Anthony Weiner's denial, his resignation from Congress, then his failed attempt for New York mayor up to today, the latest scandal. This is how it all went down. All the way back to July 2010.

Yeah, let's do that. You say wiener, I say weiner. We'll just say Carlos Danger. I think we can agree on that. A Democratic congressman from New York, he gets national focus for this great speech on the House floor about health care for 911 emergency responders. I mean, who wouldn't fall in with that? Who wouldn't agree with that? Videos of Weiner's speech go viral, and they thrust him into the public spotlight, and he's a star. Okay, that's July 2010, May, about one year later, 2011, a disgusting photo appears briefly on his Twitter account.

What? Was that his, as we say, TT? If you accuse him of it, the evidence won't stand up in court. Okay, I think you used that one on me yesterday about a story, and I laughed, ha ha, but now it's over, Alan. No more stand up in court jokes. Okay. So this photo appears, but this was of his penis.

Conservative bloggers were the first to report the image, and it showed, wait, no, this was his bulging crotch of a man in his underwear. We didn't see the full Monty at that moment. All right, that's 2011, and he just can't stop. That's May 27. May 30, he tells reporters a hacker got control of his Twitter account and said, look, this is a prank and not very creative. Okay, he says, I was hacked. Move on.

Okay, about one day later, he tells CNN he didn't post the picture, and he has hired a law firm to investigate. He continues to evade the question of whether it's really him or not. He just says, I was hacked. But he won't say that he's taking pictures of his own penis. Okay. June 6th. Let me advise you something, Alan.

If you've ever thought of taking those photos, don't do it. Okay? No. Just keep that to yourself. Let it be extra special by keeping it a secret. I'm a boxer guy anyway, so it wouldn't work. Good to yourself. Let it be extra special by keeping it a secret. I'm a boxer guy anyway, so it wouldn't work. Good to know. Kind of wish I didn't know, but now I do and I can't get it out of my head. June 6, 2011. About face, he starts crying. Weiner cries and apologizes for lying about his pee pee shot on his Twitter account. He admits he wasn't hacked and he has engaged in naughty online relationships

with several women. He tells reporters he will not resign and will not separate with his wife. To be clear, it was me and I sent it. Okay. And she just stands around kind of smiling the whole time. June 9, 2011. Hey, it's bad enough to take pictures of your TT on your Twitter, but then what I'd really be mad about is accidentally sending it and these online relationships. You know, what I'm saying, Alan, is this. I'm working two, three jobs. I'm making the dinner five nights a week. I'm packing the lunches and the snacks.

I'm washing the school clothes. I'm doing the science projects. When I'm doing all this, I'm feeding the cat and the snacks. I'm washing the school clothes. I'm doing the science projects. When I'm doing all this, I'm feeding the cat and the dog. And you have time to send lewd photos online. You know what? I just want to burn down the house on that one. June 9. Well, I guess members of Congress have a lot of spare time. I guess they do. Between filibusters. June 9, 2011, Weiner and his wife are expecting their first child. Oh, man. Okay, she's an advisor to Hillary Clinton, of course. June 11, he decides he will seek, quote, treatment.

That's 2011. And focus on being a better husband. He takes a short leave from Congress. Okay. Never knew what kind of treatment it was. TMZ publishes photos of him in various states of undress, which he took of himself in a locker room. Thanks, Harvey at TMZ.

That's the first thing I woke up to that morning. They're always providing us with cultural enrichment. Thank you. June 2011, he announces he's resigning from Congress for personal mistakes. Good. Good riddance. That's June 2011. December, his wife gives birth to a beautiful baby boy, Jordan.

July 2012, a People magazine interview, he says he has no plans to run. That was in July. The next May, he announces he's running from there of New York City. You know, this brings up visions of Eliot Spitzer. Okay, July 2013, a gossip website publishes screenshots of sexual conversation he has with a woman last summer. Hours later, Weiner says they took place after his resignation and Huma, his wife, joins him during the press conference. All right, we need to shrink because I remember when Spitzer's wife stood beside him with kind of a dazed look on her face when he was doing his press conference.

There was a difference with Spitzer. I mean, Spitzer was a woman of the night who was basically, he had a shoe fetish. He didn't have a teenager fetish. There is a significant difference because a shoe and a teenager are different kind of victims and different levels of badness.

Call your horses, Sonny, because from what I recall, the victim, and I don't care if she was a hooker or a nun, claims Spitzer beat her up. Okay. In the Plaza Hotel, no less. While I'm downstairs having. Mayflower. At the Mayflower Hotel.

Was it the Mayflower? Yeah. Well, maybe there actually there was more than that. But in the Washington situation, it was at the Mayflower Hotel. I'm talking about in New York. Oh. And I think it was the Plaza. Okay.

And that's why, while I'm downstairs having the, who's the girl that lives in the Plaza and there's movies about her and Lucy loves her little girl that lives in the Plaza. For Pete's sake, it's a story. Eloise! Are you saying he was upstairs with Eloise? No, I'm saying I'm downstairs with Lucy and John David having the way overpriced Eloise tea for children. He's upstairs with a hooker beating her, according to her. She was a thousand dollars an hour call girl from the Emperor's Club VIP. That's who she was. Don't care. Anyway, i'm talking about the wife standing by with the glazed look september 11 2013

he loses the race june 2014 he apologizes for another misstep on twitter okay that's when he favorited a tweet labeling a hookup app tender as the ultimate sexed machine. Okay, never ends with this guy. January 2016, a documentary on his disastrous run for New York City mayor debuts at Sundance Film Festival. It was awful. Not it, but the content of it. Chronicling a redemption story, but it ends in disgrace. August 2016, she announces, as you say, her optical separation, and that leads us to today. Now,

tell me about the plea. What is he pleading guilty to? Weiner will plead guilty to a single count of transferring obscene material to a minor pursuant to a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan. I don't see the potential sentence. Of course, we won't know the sentence until the judge hands it down because sometimes the judge doesn't accept the plea deal. I saw that happen last week with the sheriff of L.A. County. The prosecution was asking for two years. The judge gave Sheriff Baca three years. So you don't know. The judge just may not, may be disgusted with the whole thing and not even accept that plea deal. We don't know that yet. Okay, hold on

just a moment. Tell me again exactly the charge he's pleading to. He's pleading guilty to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor. And that is with a potential sentence of zero to 10 years. But that means he could avoid prison. The ultimate sentence, of course, to be determined by a judge. And I doubt we won't even know the sentence today because, you know, they're going to going to have a sentencing investigation and all of that and it's called a pre-sentence investigation exactly it's investigation and that is when the probation department not that he's going to get probation he could they are responsible for doing a psi pre-sentence investigation wherein they determine that what they think is the appropriate sentence whether whether the judge follows it or not. I'm curious to find out if probation is possible. It is.

Well, I can tell you what it's going to be. He's going to get probation. That's what's going down. I feel that happening too. Yeah, it's going to happen. Now, if this were somebody else sending lewd photos over the wires to a minor and actually having the minor engage in undressing herself and other lewd acts on the other end, as I recall, or asking her to. There would be jail time, but there's not going to be jail time here. I'm telling you right now. Would they even have been caught, though? Would they even have been caught unless people are looking at this guy, anything he tweets or whatever happens, he's constantly under the, I mean, he had the FBI looking at his computer. So they don't normally do that just for the average guy out there tweeting.

Let me tell you something. I listened to that kind of talk when I was forced into some kind of esoteric class in college about if the tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise? Do I care is the next question because I know it fell. And do I care if they would not have been caught if he were not living in the lap of luxury and had one toe in the Oval Office? He did. So it doesn't matter if he would not have been caught. What matters is it happened and this was a minor. And even if she was put up to doing

it, I still don't care. And there's no evidence of that, by the way. It doesn't matter. What matters is did he try to lure a minor into lewd behavior? That is what matters. He's acknowledging that he at least sent the obscene material to her. So that's looks like he's pleading guilty today. So long story short, let's watch this train wreck as it unfolds. If this is going to be rich man's justice again, I apologize on behalf of the judge and the criminal justice system, because this deserves at least a short stint

behind bars for his ongoing behavior with minors online. It's not okay, and it needs jail time. That's where I'm coming from. This guy you said was one step away from the Oval Office. That is so true, because you see, they had been befriended by the Clintons. Hillary and Bill had sort of made them like their mentees. Huma was the closest person to Hillary. And Anthony considered himself to be a future Bill Clinton. They were going to be the power couple. I remember writing about this seven, eight years ago, how these two people were going to be the next Clintons. And someday he could be in the White House.

And all of this has ended. And thank God. Well, this is what I know. When there's a child victim, it takes on a whole new spectrum to me. I think there should be jail time, even if it's minor jail time, because this is wrong. I think it should be serious jail time when you send porn to a minor child. But that's just me. Call me crazy. Let me throw this out there. He's gone to some sex addiction rehab. Is this not, can't you look at this as an illness and not a criminal act?

With that, I'm going to sign off because I know if I answer you truthfully, I'll get assaulted by everybody online saying how mean I am. You know, don't start with me. Huma is standing by her man because he's sick, and she wants to help him get better. That is her problem, and let me also add that he had his baby in one of his sex pictures that he was sending. The baby was in bed with him. Okay, so let's just stew on that. Okay, I'm signing off. I'm going to see what

happens in court. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories. I hope you all agree with me today. I know Alan does not. Or me. Or him. Thanks, everybody, for being with us. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.