New lewd Weiner photos emerge

Disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner is once again apologizing for lewd photos, as a new set of sexually explicit pictures sent to a young woman through social media has come to light.

On Monday, gossip website The Dirty posted screenshots and conversations a young woman alleged were sent to her by Weiner, who used the alias Carlos Danger.

The former member of Congress is currently running for New York City mayor — and he told the press he isn’t leaving the contest in light of the new, explicit correspondence.

“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out, and today they have,” a statement released by Weiner on Tuesday read. “As I have said in the past, these things that I did were wrong and hurtful to my wife and caused us to go through challenges in our marriage that extended past my resignation from Congress. While some things that have been posted today are true and some are not, there is no question that what I did was wrong.

“This behavior is behind me,” Weiner added, trying to head off another embarrassing scandal. “I’ve apologized to Huma and am grateful that she has worked through these issues with me and for her forgiveness. I want to again say that I am very sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end of these messages and the disruption that this has caused. As my wife and I have said, we are focused on moving forward.”

According to the website, the exchanges between Weiner and the woman, who decided to remain anonymous, took place over a period of six months last year. The ex-congressman promised to find her a job at Politico and to buy her an apartment, but left her shafted and came through on neither. He sent explicit photos and engaged in phone sex with the woman, who was 22 years old at the time.

The website Buzzfeed identified the women’s online personas as “Sydney Leathers” and “sydneyelainexo.”

The woman, whose name and face are blurred at The Dirty, said she was “in a bad place” at the time and thought she loved Weiner. “I just want people to really know he’s lying when he acts like he has changed.”

After tweeting a photo of a man’s underwear-clad groin in 2011, Weiner initially claimed his account had been hacked. After more photos emerged — including one of him bare-chested in his congressional office — the married congressman eventually owned up to exchanging racy messages with several women, saying he’d never met any of them. He soon resigned and went into a self-imposed political exile for almost two years.

But these new revelations, including a bizarre conversation in which he talks to the young woman about his cat that “has only one eye,” place his political comeback in peril. Though he has been near the top of most mayoral polls since his late entry into the race this spring, New York voters will likely be hard on Weiner, and still see him negatively.

The ex-congressman said in a YouTube video announcement in May that he was wading into the New York City mayoral race. He’d said the previous month that he was considering it.

“I made some big mistakes and I know I let a lot of people down, but I also learned some tough lessons,” he said in the video. “I’m running for mayor because I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance.”

But Weiner has continued to contend with questions about his character and the scandal that sank his career just two years ago.

In recent interviews, he has said he should not have lied but did it because he wanted to keep the truth from his then-pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton. She told The New York Times Magazine that she has forgiven him.

His primary rivals did not immediately comment on the new revelations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.