Sheldon Silver, Ex-New York Assembly Speaker, Gets 12-Year Prison Sentence

[Valin]

NY Times:

BENJAMIN WEISER and VIVIAN YEE

MAY 3, 2016

 

Sheldon Silver, who rose from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to become one of the state’s most powerful and feared politicians as speaker of the New York Assembly, was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years in prison in a case that came to symbolize Albany’s culture of graft.

 

The conviction of Mr. Silver, 72, served as a capstone to a campaign against public corruption by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, which has led to more than a dozen state lawmakers’ being convicted or pleading guilty.

 

But none had the power, cachet or longevity that Mr. Silver, a Democrat, had enjoyed, and prosecutors sought to make an example of him. They asked that he receive a sentence greater than the terms that had been “imposed on other New York State legislators convicted of public corruption offenses.”

 

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H/T Friends of Ours

[Valin]

Related

The Feds Target Cuomo Aide
May 3 2016

The feds are sniffing around New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

 

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents are looking into whether Cuomo's"former senior aide, Joseph Percoco, and his wife failed to properly disclose thousands of dollars in income they had received from a company or companies doing business with the state" as reported by William K. Rashbaum for The New York Times: "the inquiry strikes particularly close to Mr. Cuomo, who once described Mr. Percoco as 'my father's third son'; Mr. Percoco began his political career working for Mario M. Cuomo when he was governor and eventually worked for his son in several capacities."

 

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Corruption probe into Cuomo, de Blasio expands
Jazz Shaw
May 10, 2016

There’ been an interesting twist in the ongoing corruption investigation swirling around New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo. The Mayor has apparently had enough of all these pesky questions and he’s no longer going to cooperate with any such lines of inquiry. That might not normally be newsworthy since these are no doubt uncomfortable questions to answer, but the unique aspect of the story is who the Mayor is blaming. You see, this isn’t some Vast Right Wing Conspiracy seeking to take him down – at least as de Blasio tells it – but rather an attack from Democrat Andrew Cuomo’s office. (New York Post)

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If we simply dropped the story right there you might be left with the impression that the Governor is some sort of crusader for honest government who’s trying to root out corruption and clean up City Hall. But that story doesn’t hold up very well when you add in the fact that the FBI is closing in on Cuomo’s inner circle at the same time. In fact, they just raided the homes of two of the Governor’s biggest supporters.

 

 

The FBI raided the homes of two men close to Gov. Cuomo as part of the widening federal probe into Albany corruption, The Post has learned. (Snip)

 

 

These two Cuomo associates have quite the history between them, with massive tax delinquency problems (which later mysteriously disappeared) and sweetheart mortgage deals with political fingerprints all over them. Now that they’ve drawn the intense interest of the FBI, there’s no telling what sort of stories they may be sharing with law enforcement as the heat gets turned up.

 

These dual investigations leave the two most prominent government executives in the state in a rather awkward position.....................(Snip)

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Joseph Percoco, Ex-Cuomo Aide, Found Guilty in Corruption Trial

VIVIAN WANG and BENJAMIN WEISER

MARCH 13, 2018

A former top aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was found guilty on Tuesday of three corruption-related charges, a repudiation of the murky back-room dealings in Albany laid bare during the nearly eight-week trial.

The conviction capped a stunning fall for the former aide, Joseph Percoco, once the governor’s executive deputy secretary and longtime confidant. He was convicted of soliciting and accepting more than $300,000 in bribes from executives working for two companies with state business.

And even though Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, was not accused of wrongdoing, the verdict still underscored ethical lapses and illegal activity at a time when Mr. Cuomo is seeking re-election.

 

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Percoco represents what Cuomo’s Albany is all about

Seth Barron

March 13, 2018

The conviction of Joseph Percoco on bribery and corruption charges should seriously impede — if not spike entirely — Gov. Cuomo’s further political ambitions, statewide and nationally. Percoco has been Cuomo’s closest aide, friend, and political cat’s paw for decades, and was described at Mario Cuomo’s funeral as a member of the family.

The jury’s guilty verdict on multiple counts of personal enrichment for Percoco — who notoriously called bribes “ziti” in conversations with bagman Todd Howe — belies Cuomo’s claims to running an ethical administration. In his 2014 State of the State address, the governor made inspiring promises about getting corruption out of state government, saying “we understand your concern that there seems to be a pattern of these repeated instances of bad acts. That’s what ethics reform is. That’s why I was arguing for ethics reform last year, and that’s why I’m arguing for ethics reform this year. I propose new anti-bribery and corruption laws . . .”

Three months after uttering these lofty words, Cuomo shut down his own Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. The commission was set up to wade deep into the Albany swamp and expose it to the disinfectant of public scrutiny. “The people of this state should sleep better tonight knowing that there is a mechanism in place to make sure their government is not only competent, but is also meeting the highest ethical and legal standards,” the governor told the people of New York when he announced the formation of his blue-ribbon anti-corruption panel.

 

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Fmr. New York State Assembly Speaker Receives Seven-Year Prison Sentence

Conor Beck

July 27, 2018

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About Damn Time!