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| New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner glances at his wife, Huma Abedin, as she speaks during a news conference at the Gay Men's Health Crisis headquarters, Tuesday, July 23, 2013, in New York. The former congressman says he's not dropping out of the New York City mayoral race in light of newly revealed explicit online correspondence with a young woman. |
NEW YORK (AP)
-- Anthony Weiner found himself caught in another sexting scandal
Tuesday like the one that destroyed his congressional career, but stood
side-by-side with his wife to say he won't drop out of the race for
mayor of New York.
"This is entirely behind
me," Weiner said at an evening news conference, hours after the gossip
website The Dirty posted X-rated text messages and a crotch shot that it
said the former congressman exchanged with a woman after he left
office.
Weiner admitted sending a woman
sexually explicit photos and messages and acknowledged the activity took
place as recently as last summer, more than a year after he resigned
from the House in disgrace for the same sort of behavior with at least a
half-dozen women.
But with his wife, Huma
Abedin, smiling shyly an arm's length away from him, he said: "I want to
bring my vision to the people of the city of New York. I hope they are
willing to still continue to give me a second chance."
Weiner
then turned the microphone over to his wife, who did not appear with
him at the June 2011 news conference when he stepped down from Congress
over a scandal that began with a Twitter photo of his bulging
underpants.
This time, Abedin reaffirmed her support for her husband and said the sexting matter is "between us."
"I
love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him, and as we have said
from the beginning, we are moving forward," said Abedin, a longtime
adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Abedin
said her husband had made some "horrible mistakes both before he
resigned from Congress and after" but insisted the two of them discussed
"all of this" before he jumped into the mayor's race in May.
The
latest disclosures could severely test voters' willingness to forgive
Weiner, who has said he spent his two years in political exile since the
scandal trying to make things right with his wife and earn redemption.
Three of his rivals for mayor immediately called on him to drop out of the race.
The 48-year-old Democrat has been near the top of most polls since his late entry into the campaign.
"I
said that other texts and photos were likely to come out and today they
have," said Weiner, who added that he was surprised that more had not
previously surfaced.
After the news conference, Weiner went directly to a mayoral forum on gay men's issues and was warmly received.
The
woman with whom he exchanged the messages was not identified by The
Dirty. She told the website that she was 22 when she began chatting with
Weiner on a social networking site. She said their online relationship
began in July 2012 and lasted six months.
She
said that Weiner used the alias "Carlos Danger" for their exchanges but
that she knew she was talking to the former congressman.
The
exchanges posted on The Dirty consist of sexually explicit fantasizing
about various sex acts. At one point, the man reported to be Weiner
wrote, "I'm deeply flawed."
The woman said
Weiner promised to help her get a job at the political website Politico
and suggested meeting in a Chicago condo for a tryst.
The
woman said she and Weiner also exchanged nude photos of themselves and
engaged in phone sex. The Dirty ran a pixelated photo of what it said
were Weiner's genitals.
"This was a bad
situation for me because I really admired him. Even post scandal, I
thought he was misunderstood. Until I got to know him. I thought I loved
him. Pretty pathetic," the woman was quoted as telling the website.
She
said he later asked her to destroy the evidence of their chats. She
insisted that she never had sex with Weiner or received any payment from
him.
The woman said her relationship with
Weiner "fizzled" in November 2012. She said she last heard from him this
past April, when his intention to run for mayor was revealed in a New
York Times Magazine profile.
Weiner said that
not every allegation made by the woman was true but that he was not
going to dispute specific claims. The lawyer for The Dirty's founder,
Nik Ritchie, said his client was ill and would not comment Tuesday.
Weiner
said his last sexting exchange happened "sometime last summer, I
think," after he and his wife sat down for a glowing People magazine
profile in which they said their troubles were behind them.
Abedin,
who was pregnant when the original sexting scandal broke and gave birth
months later, has played a large and visible role in his mayoral
campaign.
Two weekends ago, she walked hand-in-hand with Weiner as they talked to voters on a Harlem street.
Three
of his rivals for mayor - Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former
City Councilman Sal Albanese, both Democrats, and billionaire John
Catsimatidis, a Republican - called on Weiner to quit the race.
"Enough
is enough," de Blasio said. "The sideshows of this election have gotten
in the way of the debate we should be having about the future of this
city."
Another mayoral hopeful, city
Comptroller John Liu, stopped short of calling for Weiner to bow out,
but suggested his "propensity for pornographic selfies is a valid issue
for voters."
The other leading Democratic
candidates, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former
City Comptroller Bill Thompson, did not immediately comment.
The
disclosure suddenly puts Weiner's indiscretions, judgment and candor
back in the forefront of his campaign, political analysts said.
"It
makes it tougher to believe this is behind him," said Democratic former
state Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, now a political consultant.
Some
voters have said they felt Weiner had atoned for his past and were
willing to give him a second chance. But a third chance, for misbehavior
that occurred after his resignation?
"I think
he had a chance to redeem himself and if he did it twice, he really
betrayed the public's trust again," said Jeremy Green, a New Yorker. "I
think he's past the point of no return for New Yorkers."
