N.Y. TIMES
Anthony D. Weiner’s improbable campaign for mayor was engulfed on Tuesday by a new scandal involving explicit online messages, imperiling his political resurrection two years after he resigned from Congress over similar behavior.
Mr. Weiner, appearing solemn and a bit worn as he faced more than 100 journalists at a hastily arranged news conference, acknowledged that his habit of sending sexual images and text messages to female fans had continued for more than a year after he left Congress vowing to seek treatment and change his behavior.
The revelation collides with the narrative Mr. Weiner has offered throughout the campaign, in which he has repeatedly suggested that he has spent his time since leaving Congress rehabilitating himself and repairing his family relationships. After a late entry into the Democratic primary, he had rapidly risen in the polls, and performed strongly in fund-raising, as his relentless focus on ideas and his omnipresence helped ease the concerns of many voters.
On Tuesday, seeming to recognize the fragility of his public standing, he pleaded with New Yorkers to trust his assertions that he is now a changed man, despite the news that his online adventures — some conducted under the pseudonym of Carlos Danger — had persisted through last summer, after the birth of his child.
Speaking amid the cramped cubicles of a vacant Chelsea office, Mr. Weiner, alternately chastened and defiant, vowed to press ahead with his campaign. His wife, Huma Abedin, stood by his side, at times smiling at him, but at times staring at the floor or at the cabinets behind her.
in a surprise move, Weiner’s wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who has never spoken publicly before, took the mic to defend her husband.Publicly airing the couple’s private pain. Ms. Abedin said her decision to stay with Mr. Weiner was “not an easy choice,” and said, “Anthony’s made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after.”
“We discussed all of this before Anthony decided he would run for mayor, so really what I want to say is, I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him,” she added.
Ms. Abedin,... spoke haltingly about the ups and downs of her marriage, making it clear that reconciling with Mr. Weiner after the scandal was a long and difficult process. “It took a lot of work, and a whole lot of therapy, to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony,” she said, reading from a prepared text that she slowly unfolded at the lectern.
----....He went straight from the news conference to a forum on H.I.V. and AIDS issues, arriving late, as usual, and smiling as he was greeted with a warm round of applause. He told the audience that many voters might be turned off by the mistakes he made, but he emphasized his credentials as an outsider, saying he was the only candidate in the race who would “shake things up.”
“I admit it: there are a lot of people who probably listen to me and say, ‘You know what, you’re not a very good messenger for these things,’ ” he said. “I don’t dispute it.”
As he spoke passionately about issues like housing, gay rights and health care, distinguishing himself from his rivals by rising from his chair and gesticulating forcefully, the audience responded warmly, with shouts of “Yes, that’s right!” and “You the man!”
The turbulent day began when BuzzFeed posted an article calling attention to posts on The Dirty, a Web site which describes itself as a purveyor of gossip and satire, and which warns that its “postings may contain erroneous or inaccurate information.”
The Dirty said that it had spoken with a woman, whom it did not name, who provided copies of her communications with a man who was apparently Mr. Weiner. The man engaged in explicit discussions of sexual acts he said he fantasized about performing with her, and sent her a picture of his penis; she told him, “Your health care rants were a huge turn-on.” The woman, 22 at the time, alleged that Mr. Weiner offered her an apartment, and proposed that he visit her.
At one point, Mr. Weiner called the woman “a walking fantasy.” But he also seemed aware that the conversations could be dangerous, and later asked the woman to “do me a solid. Could you hard delete all our chats.” In another exchange, he appeared to be in a reflective mood, and wrote, “I’m deeply flawed.”
Nik Richie, the blogger who posted the exchanges on The Dirty, declined to be interviewed, saying in a statement, “I’m just doing my job.” Ben Smith, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed, said a reader had called his attention to the blog posts.
Even within Mr. Weiner’s inner circle, which had been shocked by his dishonesty when the original scandal erupted in 2011, there was a wave of surprise and dismay over Tuesday’s disclosures, according to people close to the campaign. But his advisers said Mr. Weiner had not seriously considered withdrawing from the campaign, arguing that he had previously warned the public that there might be new revelations.
“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out and today they have,” Mr. Weiner told reporters. “I want to again say that I am very sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end of these messages and the disruption this has caused.”
----
The racy online conversations that have jeopardized Anthony D. Weiner’s campaign for mayor of New York began with an angry Facebook message, according to the editor of a blog who has communicated with the young woman involved.
Not long after Mr. Weiner resigned from Congress, the 22-year-old woman reached out to express her disappointment in him.
Mr. Weiner eventually responded and, at his urging, their exchanges veered from politics to sex within a week, as he demanded dozens of explicit photographs, said Nik Richie, the editor of The Dirty, the blog that first documented the exchanges.
“He started putting the sexual moves on her and she just went with it,” Mr. Richie said in an interview.
The account that emerged on Wednesday suggests that Mr. Weiner’s interactions with the woman, a partisan Democrat from Indiana who thought of him as a hero, fit his longstanding pattern. In rapid and reckless fashion, he sought to transform casual conversations with female fans into graphically sexual exchanges, frequently laced with lewd language and bawdy images, the women have said in interviews.
Mr. Richie’s account, based on what he said were extensive conversations with her, cannot be independently verified. The woman, who is identified in online profiles as Sydney Elaine Leathers, has declined repeated requests to discuss the matter. A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner also declined to comment.
The new details about Mr. Weiner’s interactions with the woman surfaced on a day when he faced intensifying calls to drop out of the race for mayor, from Democratic leaders and the editorial boards of The Daily News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Mr. Weiner, who now acknowledges that his habit of sending racy messages to women had persisted long after his resignation from the House in 2011, has not disputed reports that he had an online relationship with the woman that extended into 2012. But he has said elements of the reporting about the episode are inaccurate, without elaborating.
In the interview, Mr. Richie suggested his Web site would publish new and embarrassing information about the relationship in the coming days.
The relationship lasted months. According to the woman, Mr. Richie said, Mr. Weiner had told her that he loved her and discussed the possibility of securing a place for them to meet in Chicago.
In their conversations, Mr. Richie said, Mr. Weiner repeatedly sought photographs of the woman. “He would demand pictures almost every day,” Mr. Richie said. “He always wanted pictures with heels in them. He loved her heels.”
He estimated that the woman sent Mr. Weiner about 35 images. The Dirty has reported that Mr. Weiner sent an image of his penis to the woman.
Mr. Richie said he first heard from the woman in April but was unsure of her credibility. About a week ago, she told him that she had kept screenshots capturing her conversations with Mr. Weiner and asked how she could submit them to Mr. Richie’s Web site.
He said he had no desire to hurt Mr. Weiner, whom he referred to during the interview as Carlos Danger, the nickname Mr. Weiner used in exchanges with the woman.