Anthony Weiner begins 21-month prison sentence for sexting a minor

Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner reported to federal prison Monday to begin serving his 21-month sentence for sexting with a 15-year-old girl, The Associated Press reports.

Weiner pleaded guilty in May to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor. He was sentenced in September by a federal judge, who said that those who examined the former Democratic representative had a uniform opinion that he had "a disease that involves sexual compulsivity; some call it a sex addiction."

In a letter to the judge asking for leniency, Weiner wrote: "My regret for my crime is profound. I have endangered the well-being of a 15-year-old girl who reached out to me on the internet. My continued acting out over years crushed the aspirations of my wife and ruined our marriage. I am so deeply sorry for the harm that I have done to her, and I live with the sorrow that I will never be able to fix that."

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The Daily Mail revealed Weiner's dalliance with the teenager in September 2016. A subsequent criminal probe into Weiner's relationship with the underage girl led then-FBI Director James Comey to announce that he'd reopened a probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private server. During its investigation of Weiner, the FBI had found emails between Clinton — then the Democratic nominee for president — and Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife and close Clinton aide, on Weiner's computer.

Before Weiner was sentenced, his lawyers tried to argue that the girl had pursued Weiner with the intention of affecting the 2016 election. In 2011, Weiner resigned his House seat after being caught in a sexting scandal; in 2013, he dropped out of the Democratic primary race for mayor of New York City after being embroiled in a similar controversy.