Ex-con whips out Anthony Weiner’s prison typewriter cartridge and puts it on sale
Who knows what spicy tales could be exposed?
An ex-convict is trying to sell Anthony Weiner’s used prison typewriter cartridge — which he claims could contain blockbuster letters the former congressman wrote during his stay in the slammer.
Derek Thomas, 56, emailed the Daily Beast on Thursday seeking at least $4,000 for the cartridge he said Weiner used while they were both at FMC-Devens in Massachusetts, the outlet reported after turning down the offer.
“I’ve had it for so long. I’ve been making an active effort to market it. I know he was writing to everyone and anyone,” Thomas — who was released just last week — boasted.
“If you unspool it, it’s very easy to read. It’s like a scroll. It’s a Jack Kerouac novel,” he claimed.
Weiner, 59, reported to Devens in November 2017, five months after he was sentenced to 21 months for sending explicit messages to a 15-year-old.
He remained at the medium-security facility until his early release on Valentine’s Day 2019.
Thomas claimed that he used another typewriter near Weiner’s every day for a month, and that the former New York congressman offered him the cartridge when he was done with it, the Daily Beast said.
Instead of using the cartridge, however, Thomas alleged that he “sealed it in a plastic bag” for the next several years.
In his email to the outlet, Thomas suggested that the cartridge might contain some naked truths about Bill and Hillary Clinton, or Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin.
“You’re not allowed to mail stuff out like that from the BOP. But I just got out. So I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” he told the Daily Beast.
Weiner, however, laughed off Thomas’ suggestion.
The former golden-boy Democrat — whose promising political career fell flat following a series of sex scandals — told the Daily Beast that he had a hard time remembering Thomas, but admitted that the interaction sounded “vaguely familiar.”
“It’s conceivable that I gave it away. When you leave prison, you give away your s–t,” the one-time mayoral candidate shrugged.
“There is no Clinton stuff on that cartridge, definitely. Letters to my wife, that would be on there,” he added.
When pressed with an emailed photo of Thomas, Weiner came up short and said he “doesn’t look like anyone” he remembered from Devens, which houses about 900 inmates.
“It could be both my cartridge and also not someone I know,” the WABC77 radio host said.
“Here’s the thing. Typing cartridges were expensive and typewriters were not super available,” Weiner — known in some circles as Carlos Danger — told the Daily Beast. “You bought the cartridges at the commissary … [and] between those and packets of tuna, you would buy the tuna.”
Thomas, for his part, was a prison system veteran by the time Weiner arrived at Devens, the Daily Beast reported.
He was first arrested in March 2012 after authorities found at least 500 child porn images and videos on his computer, his criminal complaint stated.
Prosecutors in Vermont later discovered that Thomas posed online as a teenage boy in order to coerce a 12-year-old into taking sexually explicit videos in exchange for presents, a press release said.
He pleaded guilty to producing child pornography in December 2013, and was sentenced the following year.
Thomas was moved to FMC-Devens in March 2018, and he stayed there until December 2022, the Daily Beast said, citing the Bureau of Prisons.
Despite Thomas’ suggestion that the cartridge could contain scandalous information, Weiner seemed content to let it all hang out.
“I don’t know what the going price is for a used typewriter cartridge for a former elected official. I didn’t realize those ribbons would be a hot commodity,” he told the Daily Beast.
If anything, Weiner added, the cartridge might be a good opportunity to give a fellow ex-inmate a lift.
“Guy’s got to do what he has to do. People have made careers off of me. Anyway, I can help a brother out, I guess,” he said.
