NEW YORK (AP) — A jury has convicted former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of public corruption charges, dashing the 74-year-old Democrat’s second attempt to avoid prison after a decades-long career as one of the most powerful politicians in state government.
The verdict Friday came more than two years after his first 2015 trial resulted in a 12-year prison sentence.
An appeals court tossed out that conviction, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling that changed the legal boundaries for public corruption.
Prosecutors said Silver illegally earned $4 million from a cancer researcher and real estate developers who benefited from his clout in state government.
Defense lawyers countered that his fees were “perfectly legal.”
I think it is safe to assume that anyone fitting this description is corrupt.
Thank you, SCOTUS, for creating a very wide playing space for elected officials to be corrupt without having to worry about being convicted for corruption.
He might give SCOTUS a chance to expand the playing space even further. Clearly, the founders would have wanted it to be very difficult to find a public official guilty of corruption.
A tragic miscarriage of justice.
Clearly, the poor man simply offered essential consulting on “reorganizing their internal accounting systems”.
Wonder if this is making Cohen and others soil their Depends.
I thought that was a pretty good wordsmithing effort. The first draft read: “the bribe to Cohen was a challenge for our accountants, who needed the books to balance, but couldn’t use “bribe” as a line item.”
So Silver lining his pockets was wrong?