Anthony Weiner was sentenced on Monday to 21 months in prison for sexting a 15-year-old girl.
But who is he and what does his conviction have to do with Hillary Clinton’s defeat in last year’s election?
Who is Anthony Weiner?
The 53-year-old Democratic politician was congressman for 12 years until 2011, when he resigned after one of many sex scandals.
While congressman, he married one of Hillary Clinton’s long-term aides, Huma Abedin, and Bill Clinton even officiated at their wedding.
Weiner and Abedin have a five-year-old son, but separated last year during the presidential campaign after news of the latest sexting scandal came to light, and are now going through a divorce.
What did he do and why is he going to prison?
Weiner cried in court on Monday as judge Denise Cote sentenced him for illicit online contact via Skype and Snapchat with a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina.
As well as the 21-month jail sentence, he will be subject to a $10,000 (£7,425) fine.
He has to report to prison by November 6 in six weeks’ time, and he’ll have to enrol into a sex offenders’ treatment programme.
He can have no contact with his victim, and his internet use will be monitored.
Has he been caught sexting before?
This is a man who’s had more than his fair share of sexting scandals.
In 2011, a lewd picture was publicly tweeted from then-Congressman Weiner’s Twitter account. Several graphic pictures later, he resigned from the House of Representatives.
Then in 2013, he tried to make a comeback by running for mayor in his hometown of New York.
Initially he led in the polls, and even let documentary-filmmakers follow him for their film ‘Weiner’.
But then disaster struck as more photos emerged, and he came a lowly fifth in the democratic primaries.
What does this have to do with the US election?
Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, was the vice chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. During the US election, news broke of the sexting incident he’s just been sentenced for.
FBI agents investigating messages he sent the teenager from his laptop also found evidence of emails between his wife and the Democrat nominee.
In light of those emails, then-FBI Director James Comey announced less than a month before the vote he would reopen the investigation into claims that Clinton had used a private computer server.
Comey said just two days before the election that nothing new had been found, but many credit his intervention with Clinton’s narrow loss.
