Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin are taking their divorce case private to protect their young son from embarrassment
- Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner withdrew their divorce case from court on Wednesday, agreeing to private negotiations in order to spare their 6-year-old son public proceedings.
- The former New York congressman is serving a nearly two-year federal prison sentence following his conviction that stemmed from sexting with a 15-year-old girl.
- Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, filed for divorce last May after her estranged husband pleaded guilty.
Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner withdrew their divorce case from court on Wednesday, agreeing to private negotiations in order to spare their 6-year-old son further public embarrassment, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.
The former New York congressman is serving a nearly two-year federal prison sentence following his conviction on charges that stemmed from sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, filed for divorce last May after her estranged husband pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor.
Abedin listed the case as "contested," meaning there was dispute between the couple, who were both scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday afternoon.
"In order to ensure the proceedings have a minimal impact on their child, the parties have decided to finalize their divorce swiftly and privately," an attorney for Abedin said in a statement.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Katz confirmed in court that the case had been withdrawn.
The couple's divorce followed years of scandal, during which Weiner admitted to engaging in illicit relations with several women and one teenage girl after their communications were published by gossip sites and news outlets.
Weiner, 53, first made salacious headlines in May 2011 when he inadvertently tweeted a photo of his crotch in boxer briefs. After initially denying that he took the photo, Weiner was forced to resign from Congress. Two years later, in the midst of Weiner's second run for New York City mayor, screenshots of an explicit conversation between Weiner and a 22-year-old woman surfaced on a gossip website.
Abedin publicly forgave her husband, who finished fifth in the Democratic primary.
But in August 2016, the New York Post posted photos and screenshots of communications between Weiner and another woman in 2015. One of the photos taken by Weiner showed him in boxer briefs while his then-4-year-old son lay next to him in bed.
The following day, Abedin announced she was separating from her husband.
"After a long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband," she said in a statement.
The next month, the FBI and the NYPD announced their investigation into newly published communications between Weiner and a 15-year-old girl in England, who alleged in an interview with The Daily Mail that she and Weiner had exchanged messages for several months beginning in January 2016.
In May 2017, Weiner pleaded guilty to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor and told the court, "I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse." Shortly thereafter, Abedin announced she was divorcing her husband.
In September, Weiner was sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison.