Anthony Weiner's Ex-Sexter Sydney Leathers Addresses His Teen Victim

Here is Leathers' letter:

"In May of 2016, I was celebrating my upcoming college graduation, not knowing my celebration would be short-lived. That same month I started receiving messages on Facebook from a 15-year-old girl who said she had been sexting and skyping with Anthony Weiner. Initially, I thought someone was trying to prank me. I thought there was no way this could be true. Sure, he had been caught sexting plenty of women, but I just didn't think he would go after a child in that way. But then I started really racking my brain and I remembered something: around the time of his first scandal that forced him to resign from Congress he had been caught sexting a 17-year-old girl. I don't recall that particular part of the scandal being a large focus. Not too many people seemed outraged about it and the media didn't pay much attention to it. I'm not sure if that's because 17 is "close enough" to 18, or if people were distracted by the circus sideshow this scandal had become. (Remember the press conference Andrew Breitbart hijacked?) While I was reconsidering whether or not what this 15 year old was saying to me was plausible, I decided to ask for some sort of proof. She quickly sent me a screenshot of a conversation she was having with Weiner via facebook messenger. The first thing I noticed: he used the same facebook account to talk to both of us. Her story was adding up.

"At first, she was discussing the idea of going to the media with this story. I was reluctant, mostly because of my experiences with media. I had tried to give information about Weiner anonymously and I was quickly outed by Buzzfeed. I worried she would have a similar fate. Yes, she was a minor, but would media outlets really care enough to protect this child's identity? I wasn't sure, so I asked if she would go to the local police in her home state of North Carolina. She told me she didn't want to go to the police because she felt like she had been consenting. I explained to her that at 15 years old, legally, you cannot consent for a reason: you are not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle these types of adult decisions. At 15, you cannot grasp the consequences of adult decisions. I wanted her to understand this wasn't her fault, she wasn't to blame, she did nothing wrong. Being targeted by a predator makes her the victim; she had been groomed by a grown man with very serious issues.

"Since I couldn't convince her to go to police, I tried to go another route: I had my therapist call CPS in North Carolina. At the time, I thought it was better to have a third party do it for me. I didn't want to be too involved, even though emotionally, I was very caught up in this behind the scenes. In my childhood I too had been exploited by much older men who should've known better. It's something that haunts me to this day. It's the main reason I'm still in therapy. So this situation really hit a nerve. I let the girl know that CPS may contact her, and if they did, she should be as forthcoming with them as she was with me. Unfortunately, CPS never contacted her. They told my therapist they didn't have enough information.

"A different approach was taken and the story ended up on the Daily Mail. I was pleased they were responsible enough to blur her face and keep her name out of the story. Weiner immediately tried to label his newest scandal as a hoax. This isn't uncommmon for him. When he accidentally tweeted an inappropriate photo in 2011, he claimed he had been hacked and at first refused to admit the photo was even him. Of course, it was him and he later resigned from Congress in disgrace after this incident. But at the time of his newest, and now third scandal, he had little to lose job-wise, but much to lose as far as his marriage was concerned. I think between Weiner sending a photo with his child next to his genitals and the news of his 15 year old victim, Huma had enough. Word was out yesterday that she filed for divorce. Who can blame her? If anything, I think most people were surprised it took her as long as it did. I'm sure it didn't help that while the FBI was looking into Weiner's electronics to find evidence to support the 15 year old's claims, they found some of Hillary Clinton's emails. This announcement from the FBI right before the election definitely hurt Hillary's campaign and I would assume at this point Huma cared more about that campaign than her embarrassing, failed marriage. I think the combination of the photo he sent with his child, plus the idea of him sexting a 15 year old combined with the damage he did to Hillary's campaign altogether managed to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

"The same day Huma filed for divorce, Anthony was in court pleading guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor. He will have to register as a sex offender and will likely face time in prison. He cried in court saying, "I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse." I personally think he's using the idea that he has a "sickness" as an excuse. It's obvious he wants the general public to pity him, but he dug his own grave. His story is like a Shakespearean tragedy, but too tawdry, dramatic, and absurd to even seem real. But this is reality. And the only real victim in this case is the child he exploited. If you want to feel pity for anyone, it should be her. My only hope is that his guilty plea sets her free. I hope she's able to let all of this go and just move on and be a kid, have a normal life. She deserves that. And I think if I can pick up the pieces post scandal and have a normal, happy life, so can she."