Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

Scandal: Anthony Weiner

Anthony David Weiner (/ˈwiːnər/; born September 4, 1964) is an American former Democratic congressman who represented New York's 9th congressional district from January 1999 until June 2011. He won seven terms as a Democrat, never receiving less than 60% of the vote. Weiner resigned from Congress in June 2011 after an incident in which a sexually suggestive photo that he sent to a woman via Twitter was captured and publicized.

On May 19, 2017, Weiner pleaded guilty to another, unrelated sexting charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, ordered to pay a $10,000 fine] and was required to permanently register as a sex offender. Weiner began serving his federal prison sentence in November 2017. He was released from prison in February 2019 and released from halfway house custody in May 2019.

A New York City native, Weiner attended public schools and graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 1985 with a B.A. in political science. He was a member of the New York City Council from 1992 to 1998 and a congressional aide to U.S. Representative Chuck Schumer from 1985 to 1991. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of New York City in the 2005 and 2013 New York City mayoral elections.

Early life

Weiner was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the middle son of Jewish parents, Mort Weiner, a lawyer, and his wife, Frances (née Finkelstein), a public high school math teacher. The family lived for a time in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Weiner attended elementary school at P.S. 39 The Henry Bristow School. His older brother Seth was 39 years old when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 2000. His younger brother, Jason, is a chef and co-owner of several New York restaurants.

Weiner took the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, an examination used to determine admission to all but one of New York City's specialized high schools, and was admitted to Brooklyn Technical High School, from which he graduated in 1981. He attended the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and spent his junior year as an exchange student at the College of William & Mary, where he was friends with future comic and political commentator Jon Stewart. Stewart acknowledged the friendship when he poked fun at him during the sexting scandal in 2011. Weiner's interests turned towards politics; he became active in student government and was named the most effective student senator.

After he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1985, Weiner joined the staff of then–United States Representative and current Senator Charles Schumer. He worked in Schumer's Washington, D.C. office for three years, then transferred to the district office in Brooklyn in 1988, when Schumer encouraged him to become involved in local politics.

New York City Council

After working for Schumer for six years, Weiner got his first chance at political office in 1991 when the New York City Council was expanded from 35 to 51 seats. Weiner was considered a long-shot because he faced strong competition in the Democratic primary elections from two other candidates who had better local name recognition and funding. Weiner narrowly won the primary, besting Adele Cohen by fewer than 200 votes. Controversy ensued in the last weeks of the campaign after Weiner's campaign anonymously spread leaflets around the district that had alleged ties between Cohen and the so-called "Jackson-Dinkins agenda"; the leaflets referred to the Crown Heights riots earlier in the year, after which white residents had seen Jesse Jackson, who became notorious for his earlier remarks about New York City as "Hymietown", and then-mayor David Dinkins as having been beholden to the predominantly African-American rioters and therefore endangering whites.