Anthony Weiner may have gotten himself in a pickle over the past two weeks, but it looks like he avoided a worse situation. The Atlantic Wire's Ujala Sehgal summarizes the story of how fake identities were created to gather evidence against Weiner, whose Twitter account was being closely monitored by the conservative #bornfreecrew:

The girls: "Nikki Reid," supposedly a 16-year-old California high school girl (Twitter handle @starchild111), her mother "Patricia Reid," and "Marianela Alicea," her classmate.

The seduction: Reid's account, which was deleted two weeks ago, was created in September. but had little activity until March when she launched a campaign to get Weiner to be her prom date at Hollywood High School in May. She tweeted comments like "Will you be my prom date @RepWeiner."

The trap: It worked, as far as we know, to the extent that Weiner began following her on Twitter ("Tweeps my progressive idol @RepWeiner is following me. Today is the best day ever!") When Mike Stack, a 39-year-old member of the #bornfreecrew, saw this, he sent her a message that said he thought it was "creepy" that Weiner was following a minor. (Admittedly, his message to this "high school girl" sounds pretty creepy as well). But within days of this, his group was contacted by another Twitter user claiming to be Reid's classmate, Marianela Alicea, who said she had "incriminating evidence" about Weiner, but never provided any. The user stopped communicating with Stack and vanished.

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.