Sydney Leathers, the woman identified as Anthony Weiner’s new online mistress, is a heavily tattooed, high school dropout hell-bent on becoming famous — and her mother is no fan of the mayoral candidate.
“I have nothing to say except God help New York if he gets to be mayor. You can print that,” Laura Leathers told the Daily News at her home in Allendale, Ill.
Her starry-eyed daughter Sydney, 23, reached out to Weiner on Facebook right after he quit Congress in June 2011 — and ended up in an Internet affair that involved kinky messaging, steamy phone sex and mutual declarations of love.
Leathers was in hiding Wednesday.
Sydney Leathers, who lives in sleepy Princeton, Ind. — one mouse click and 850 miles away from Weiner — was in hiding Wednesday, after she was outed by the website The Dirty as Weiner’s latest sexting partner.
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Using the name “Carlos Danger,” Weiner carried on with her for several months, beginning in July 2012, more than a year after he resigned from Congress for similar behavior. Weiner on Tuesday admitted to the relationship, but said it had ended and that he had — once again — finally put his sexting ways behind him.
Anthony DelMundo/New York Daily News
Anthony Weiner admitted to the relationship Tuesday, but he said that he has put his sexting ways behind him.
On Wednesday, his campaign said it wasn’t Weiner’s only new virtual liaison. Weiner chatted up multiple women online after leaving Congress, his spokeswoman said. It was not immediately clear how many women were involved and how Weiner interacted with them.
Weiner tried to regain his political footing Wednesday, sending an email to reassure supporters. “New Yorkers don’t quit, and I’ll never quit on you,” he declared. He returned to a business-as-usual schedule, working in his office in the afternoon and attending a candidates forum in the evening.
As he did, a picture began to emerge from the heartland of the woman at the center of the scandal.
Leathers grew up in Mount Carmel, Ill.
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In Mount Carmel, Ill., where Sydney Leathers grew up, a former close friend said that Leathers told her last summer she was texting Weiner. “I go, ‘Really? THE Anthony Weiner, Mr. Penis Guy?” the 26-year-old woman, who asked that her name be withheld, told The News.
“I said, ‘Doesn’t he have a wife?’ She said, ‘Oh yeah.’ She just kind of brushed it off like it was nothing.”
ANDREW KELLY/EPA
Weiner asked New Yorkers to give him a second chance in a news conference Tuesday, saying his lewd behavior was behind him.
The friend — who eventually had a falling-out with Leathers — said Weiner is probably not all to blame.
“She knew exactly what she was doing when she put herself into that,” the friend said. “He was so stupid to get involved with someone like her.”
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Ken Murray/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Leathers, from her Mt Carmel High School yearbook 2007. "Her main goal is to become famous," according to a former classmate.
Several former high school classmates from Mount Carmel said they, too, weren’t surprised to find Leathers, who left school in the 11th grade, making headlines.
“Her main goal is to become famous,” said one, who asked not to be named.
Another said, “She will take any opportunity to make the attention hers.”
Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News
Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, said she stood by him and had forgiven him on Tuesday in a news conference. She said his indiscretions were between the two of them.
Nik Richie, who oversees the The Dirty, refused to confirm Leathers’ name but he told The News the woman at the center of the sexting scandal is considering coming forward. He described her as a “Midwest . . . kind-hearted girl,” and detailed how she ended up embroiled in the second sexting scandal to rock Weiner’s political career in two years.
It began, innocently enough, two years ago, when she sent Weiner a Facebook message after he resigned from Congress, saying she was disappointed with him. Weiner replied out of the blue a year later, last July, when he gave the woman a Facebook “poke,” the equivalent of a wink, Richie said.
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Nik Richie, who runs The Dirty, said the woman at the center of the scandal is considering coming forward.
Flattered, she responded — and within a week, it “started getting sexual,” said Richie. She was 22. “Every day he’d be asking her for naked pictures,” he said.
The pattern fit Weiner’s past indiscretions, which involved getting hot and heavy online with total strangers. This time, it appeared to be even kinkier.
In this go-round, Weiner demonstrated a “major shoe fetish,” said Richie.
Ken Murray/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Leathers' home in Princeton, Ind.
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“Whenever they had phone sex he always asked what kind of shoes she was wearing,” he said.
At one point, he said, she told Weiner that she wanted to move to Chicago — and he promised her a condo there, he said.
Richard Drew/AP
Weiner tried to move on from the scandal, saying 'I’ve got an amazing wife and child upstairs. I’ve got a comfortable life.'
The two never met in person, he said.
It fizzled by November, and the two lost touch by January. But Weiner did reach out to her after a New York Times Magazine profile of him and his wife in April.
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Richard Drew/AP
Weiner said those calling for him to exit the race are generally people who never wanted him to run in the first place.
Weiner wanted to know what the woman thought of the piece, Richie said.
The woman is now terrified at being the center of a media storm, Richie said. “She’s very nervous,” he added.
Weiner tried to move on. “I’m fine,” he said Wednesday, as he left his Park Ave. South home for his campaign office. “I’ve got an amazing wife and child upstairs. I’ve got a comfortable life.”
Mayoral hopeful William Thompson joined those demanding that Weiner quit the race.And at the candidates forum, in the Bronx, Democrat Erick Salgado half-joked, “What were you thinking choosing a Latino name like [Carlos Danger]? Latinos always get the blame.”
In a lightning-round question, the candidates were asked, “Facebook, or Twitter?” Weiner shook his head, and the crowd laughed. “Well, our campaign’s on Twitter,” he said. With Erin Durkin, Nicholle Buckley
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