Metro

Weiner admits he sent lewd Twitter picture, refuses to resign

Here’s the sad fact about Rep. Anthony Weiner — he’s an Internet perv.

A “deeply ashamed” Weiner openly wept during a news conference this afternoon in Manhattan — admitting that he made “terrible mistakes” in sending lewd pictures of himself to women he met on Facebook and Twitter over the past few years.

Weiner, who choked back tears several times, also said he was “not resigning” — but took “full responsibility for my actions” over the last few years.

READ: FULL TRANSCRIPT OF WEINER’S NEWS CONFERENCE

PHOTOS: REP. ANTHONY WEINER’S WOMEN

“I haven’t told the truth and have done things I deeply regret,” he said. “I brought pain to people I care about.”

Weiner later said: “This was a very dumb thing to do.”

A contrite Weiner vowed not to resign in the wake of the scandal and said he had told his wife only today about his ongoing online sexual trysts.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” an apologetic Weiner told reporters at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown.

He said 21 times that he accepted “responsibility” for his actions.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said she’s calling for an ethics investigation into whether Weiner used official resources or broke any House rules.

“I am deeply disappointed and saddened about this situation; for Anthony’s wife, Huma, his family, his staff and his constituents,” Pelosi said.

Until today, Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) had adamantly denied sending a crotch pic tweet last month. When asked last week whether the crotch seen ’round the world was his, Weiner responded that he could not say with “certitude” it was not.

During a shocking news conference where Weiner bared all, he called the initial that photo a joke and a “hugely regrettable mistake.”

Last week’s underwear imbroglio erupted after a picture of bulging briefs popped up on the Twitter feed of Seattle college student Gennette Cordova, a follower of the congressman and an admitted fan.

After initially insisting that a hacker broke into his account and sent the photo, Weiner spent most of last week desperately trying to deflate the issue.

“I lied because I was ashamed about what I had done,” he said.

Weiner has boasted a healthy roster of women as followers on Twitter and uses the social-networking site regularly to keep in touch with supporters.

Weiner said he was “deeply sorry” for the entire incident. He apologized to the women for getting them involved in the sex saga, but said he never broke any rules.

“I have not been honest with myself,” he said.

Weiner admitted to have contacted six women over the past three years — some even after he was married last July.

“I love my wife very much,” he said. “We have no intention of splitting up over this.”

Weiner’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton aide Huma Abedin, has been silent on her husband’s travails. She was not present during the shocking news conference.

The admission comes just hours after one woman come forward to reveal that Weiner “provided a sexting exchange” with her this year, while another who said she was sent lewd photos just last month.

The woman, a 40-year-old Las Vegas blackjack dealer named Lisa Weiss, told RadarOnline.com that she has 200 sexually-explicit messages from Weiner from a Facebook account the Democratic politician no longer uses.

In one exchange, Weiner, 46, told the woman he had a “ridiculous bulge” in his shorts his past March and asked if she “wanna see” it.

RadarOnline reported that Weiner wrote to the woman, “ridiculous bulge in my shorts now. wanna see?”

She responded: “Yea! can u send a pic?”

“jeez, im rushing. let me take a quick pic,” Weiner answered.

After the woman asked how she was going to receive the image, Weiner allegedly told her: “It wont go away. and now im taking pics of it. making me harder still.”

The woman told Radar that the married politician never sent her the nude photo because he “got cold feet.”

But she claimed she has long been the object of Weiner’s flirtation and the pair have carried on a “long-term Facebook affair” earlier this year.

“I have more than 200 messages from him and they’re all explicit in nature,” the woman wrote.

The texts also came as new, creepy pictures were also made public today showing Weiner in some comprising positions. The most shocking includes one of his bare torso, which another woman claims was sent from Weiner’s Yahoo! account on May 20 using another name.

BigGovernment.com, a website run by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, published several photos today.

The site revealed that a woman had come forward with “what she claims are intimate photographs, chats, and emails that she allegedly exchanged with” Weiner.

In one photo, a man said to be Weiner can be seen sitting on a sofa with his two cats under the subject line, “Me and the pussys.”

That photograph was allegedly sent to the woman from Weiner’s AOL email account via his BlackBerry on May 4, the site reported.

In several other pics, Weiner can be seen smiling into the camera without a shirt.

A woman identified as Meagan Broussard who said she corresponded with Weiner online wrote later in the day on BigGovernment.com that “talking to him was sometimes a turn-off because he was so open and just so full of himself, as if he were looking, searching for something.

“I don’t know if he loved telling me his personal business. I didn’t want him to say more, didn’t want to hear stories about sex with famous people. But I guess he needed to express himself.”

“He was trying to get me to talk about myself sexually, and I said, straight up, I’m not an open book,” she wrote. “I was real blunt. He would ask me weird things, like “Did you miss me?” I didn’t understand that–how could I miss someone I hadn’t met and didn’t know? What is there to miss about me if you don’t even know me?”

Before Weiner took to the podium, Breitbart said the photos were real and that he also had an X-rated picture of Weiner. Weiner apologized to Breitbart and could not deny that a nude photo of himself existed.

“I wasn’t telling the truth. I had lied,” Weiner said at the news conference. “This isn’t anyone else’s fault. This was me.”

Weiner added, “I am going to try to be a better man and better husband.”

With AP