Weiner On The Loose: Disgraced Ex-Politician Leaves Jail For Halfway House in Brooklyn; Sentence Reduced for Good Behavior

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BROOKLYN – Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner has been transferred from a federal detention facility in Devens, Massachusetts, to a residential reentry center in Brooklyn, New York, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Weiner will register as a sex offender as a condition of his release from custody, which is currently scheduled for May 14. His sentence was lessened by several months due to good behavior.

Inmates confined to residential reentry centers — sometimes known as halfway houses — receive employment and health care services and may only leave the facility for approved activities, the Bureau of Prisons advises.

Before now, the ex-congressman has been confined at Federal Medical Center, Devens, a facility that specializes in the rehabilitation of sex offenders.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote gave Weiner a 21-month sentence in September 2017 after he pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor. Weiner transmitted lewd messages and photos of himself to a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina who has not been publicly identified. Those revelations first appeared in the Daily Mail.

A tearful Weiner told the judge that he was “a very sick man” during sentencing.

“The crime I committed was my rock bottom,” he said.

The ensuing investigation may well have altered the trajectory of American history: Former FBI Director James Comey reopened an investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after a cache of emails from her private, unauthorized server were discovered on a laptop Weiner used to communicate with the minor in October 2016.

Weiner was married to Huma Abedin, a senior Clinton aide. She has since filed for divorce.

Just 11 days after Comey reopened the inquiry, President Donald Trump prevailed in the 2016 election.

Weiner’s spectacular fall from grace — he was once seen as a rising figure in the Democratic Party — is chronicled in the documentary “Weiner” from directors Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg.

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