The 'Danger' of unsafe sexting

NEW YORK

- Anthony Weiner found himself caught in another sexting scandal yesterday like the one that destroyed his congressional career, but stood side-to-side with his wife to say that he won't drop out of the race for mayor of New York.

"This is entirely behind me," Weiner, a/k/a "Carlos Danger" (more on that in a minute), said at an evening news conference, hours after the gossip website The Dirty posted X-rated text messages and a crotch photo that it said the former congressman exchanged with a woman.

Weiner confirmed sending sexually explicit photos and messages to a woman online and acknowledged some of 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.

"I want to bring my vision to the people of the city of New York," Weiner said, his wife smiling faintly and shyly by his side. "I hope they are willing to still continue to give me a second chance."

Weiner then turned the microphone over to his wife, Huma Abedin, who did not appear with him at the June 2011 news conference when he stepped down from Congress. This time, she reaffirmed her support for her husband and said the 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 she and her husband 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, 48, who has said he spent the two years since the scandal trying to make things right with his wife and earn redemption.

The Democrat has been near the top of most mayoral polls since his late entry into the race.

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 the social-networking site Formspring. She said their online relationship began in July 2012 and lasted for six months.

She claimed Weiner used the alias "Carlos Danger" for their exchanges, but 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 claimed that she and Weiner also exchanged nude photos of themselves and engaged in frequent phone sex. The Dirty ran a pixelated photo of what appears to be a man's genitals.

The woman claimed her relationship with Weiner "fizzled" last November. She said she last heard from him this past April, when his intention to run for mayor was first revealed in a New York Times Magazine profile.