Sheldon Silver, Albany’s corrupt power broker, will eventually go to prison for his crimes, but not for another month, a judge ruled Monday when he sentenced the former Speaker of the Assembly to 6 1/2 years in federal prison, almost five years after he was first convicted. of corruption
Judge Valerie Caproni passed the sentence on Monday afternoon in front of Silver, 76, who was ordered to appear in person in the courtroom despite the efforts of her lawyers to hold the hearing remotely in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“This was outright corruption,” Judge Caproni told the discredited former president of the New York State Assembly, whom she had already sentenced twice.
“However, now is the time for Mr. Silver to pay the piper,” he said before handing over the 78-month sentence and a $ 1 million fine, which the ruined king received with a blank expression.
Before the deadline was given, Silver stood up, removed the mask with a latex gloved hand, and briefly made his way to court.
“I was so mad at myself and still am. But now that anger has turned mainly to sadness, ”he said in a weak voice as his wife, Rosa Silver, watched from the gallery. “My use of my office for personal gain was inappropriate, selfish, and ethically indefensible.”
He said that he had worked tirelessly to help many people for more than 35 years, but that he had “destroyed that legacy” with his criminal acts.
“Sorry,” he said.
Silver’s attorney, James Loonam, had lobbied for a “substantial period of home confinement and rigorous community service” in light of the pandemic.
He argued that Silver was at “very serious risk” if he contracted the virus in custody, given his advanced age and poor health.
“He does not deserve premature death or death in prison,” the lawyer said, adding that Silver had also done “a lot of good” while in office.
The judge ordered Silver to surrender on August 26 at noon to the facilities designated by the Bureau of Prisons in the coming weeks. His attorneys have asked him to serve his time at FCI Otisville, in Orange County, New York.
Prosecutors had lobbied for seven years, the same term Caproni gave him before a higher court overturned part of Silver’s conviction.
“He abused his office, he did it for profit, he did it for at least 15 years,” said US Attorney Daniel Richenthal. “The only reason he can be sentenced on fewer charges today is because he was very good at hiding what he did.”
The sentence ended Silver’s long-standing battle, once Albany’s most powerful politician, to avoid prison after being twice sentenced by a jury on all charges related to corrupt bribery schemes he led while in the position.
Silver’s first conviction was overturned entirely in 2017 after an appeals court ruled that the jury’s instructions at the trial did not meet a new definition of corruption that had been adopted by the Supreme Court.
Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side, was tried again by prosecutors, convicted of all charges and sentenced to seven years in prison in 2018 for accepting nearly $ 4 million in bribes in two separate schemes.
He remained on bail while appealing the ruling, but earlier this year the Second Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed his conviction on four of the charges.
In his opinion, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court unanimously claimed that Silver had illegally used his office to benefit two real estate developers in exchange for cash.
“The Real Estate Plan presents a significantly different factual scenario that more closely resembles classical bribery-based crimes,” wrote Judge Richard Wesley on behalf of the panel.
In the scheme, Silver allegedly directed real estate developers, Glenwood Management and the Witkoff Group, to do tax business with a law firm that gave Silver hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In return, Silver backed legislation that benefited real estate developers, including provisions of the 2011 rental legislation that were specifically designed to benefit Glenwood.
In the vacant charges, prosecutors alleged that Silver ordered the state health department to award $ 500,000 in grants to oncologist Robert Taub of Columbia University.
Taub then agreed to refer mesothelioma patients to Weitz & Luxenberg, a law firm where Silver worked. Silver allegedly earned millions of dollars from the scheme, but the convictions were scrapped since most of the corrupt activity was outside the statute of limitations.
For the misbehavior that was not prescribed, the panel ruled that prosecutors had not sufficiently demonstrated a quid pro quo.
.
