Sheldon Silver Wiki

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Who was Sheldon Silver ?

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the state’s most powerful politicians for decades before being impeached and sent to prison on corruption charges, died Monday in federal custody. He was 77 years old.

Sheldon Silver was an American Democratic Party politician, attorney, and convicted felon from New York City who served as Speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1994 to 2015. A native of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Silver served in the New York State Assembly from 1977 to 2015. Wikipedia


How old was Sheldon Silver ?

February 13, 1944, Lower East Side, New York, United States

Sheldon Silver Cause of Death

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Silver’s death but did not share a cause of death, which the agency said would be determined by the medical examiner.


Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan, told a judge that he prayed that he would not die in prison. He was serving a sentence of more than six years in federal prison.

Silver at one point was one of the three most powerful state officials in New York. He was the leader of the Assembly for more than two decades before his abrupt ouster in 2015 after allegations of corruption surfaced.

Sheldon Silver Family

He married Rosa Silver in the 1960s. They have four children: Michelle Trebitsch, Edward Silver, Janine Silver, and Esther Fried.


Federal authorities revealed in 2016 that Sheldon cheated on his wife with two women during his years in power.

Despite this, Rose begged a federal judge to take it easy before he was sentenced on corruption charges.

“Please give him as lenient a sentence as possible,” Rosa Silver had said in a letter to Manhattan Federal Court Judge Valerie Caproni.

Children

Michelle Trebitsch, Edward Silver, Janine Silver, Esther Fried

Sheldon Silver Net Worth

Silver’s net worth is estimated to be around $14 million.

The appeals kept Silver out of prison for years

Ultimately, he was convicted of a scheme involving a type of illegal back scratching that has plagued Albany for a long time. He supported legislation that benefited the real estate developers he knew. In return, they referred the tax business to a law firm he hired from Silver, which then paid him the fees.

The appeals kept Silver out of prison for years. His initial 2015 conviction was overturned on appeal before he was convicted again in 2018. Part of that conviction was then thrown out on another appeal, leading to another sentence in July.

At his sentencing, Silver’s lawyers had begged the court to allow him to serve his sentence under home confinement, rather than prison, due to the danger of contracting a fatal case of COVID-19. A judge rejected it.

He was briefly released from prison in May 2021, but was sent back to federal lockup just days later.

Silver’s conviction ended a nearly four-decade career in the Assembly. He first won a seat representing the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1976. Although he was a discreet figure in the halls of the State Capitol, carefully parsing comments into a baritone murmur, he was a consummate practitioner of Albany’s inside game. .

He was elected Speaker of the Assembly in 1994

He was elected Speaker of the Assembly in 1994, a powerful position that put him on an equal footing with the governor and leader of the state Senate when it came to making key decisions on annual budgets or major legislation.

In all, Silver served as a speaker for five New York governors, from Mario Cuomo to Andrew Cuomo.

He became known as an inscrutable and opinionated negotiator, blocking proposals so often that he was sometimes called “Dr. No. “Part of his obstructionist reputation had to do with being the only Democrat at the bargaining table during Republican Gov. George Pataki’s three terms, during which time the GOP also controlled the state Senate. But not all of it.

He helped derail former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s plan to locate a soccer stadium on Manhattan’s West Side. And he bore the brunt of the blame for the 2008 collapse of Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan for Manhattan, which would have charged electronic tolls for driving through the borough’s busiest neighborhoods.

The exasperated mayor issued a press release saying “it takes a special kind of cowardice” for lawmakers not to vote on the plan. Silver said that he didn’t have the votes.

He survived an early tenure coup attempt and became adept at haggling to secure education funding, tenants’ rights legislation and other policies favored by Assembly Democrats. As an Orthodox Jew, Silver was known to observe the Sabbath even during the marathon negotiating sessions that preceded annual budget deadlines and the end of legislative sessions.

Over time, he became a symbol of Albany’s much-maligned opaque style of government, and ultimately a target of federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors accused Silver of trading his influence for money


Prosecutors accused Silver of trading his influence for money. In one case, they argued that Silver persuaded a doctor to refer asbestos cancer patients to his law firm so he could seek multimillion-dollar settlements in personal injury lawsuits, a secret deal that allowed him to collect around $3 million in fees. of referral. In return, prosecutors said he directed hundreds of thousands of dollars in state grants to a research center run by the doctor.

Silver’s attorney argued that his client had a right to accept outside work payments.

His original 2015 conviction was thrown out by an appeals court following a US Supreme Court ruling that narrowed the definition of a corrupt act. He was sentenced again in a second trial in 2018 slightly adjusted to comply with the high court ruling.

But an appeals court ultimately threw out the conviction related to the asbestos cancer patients, citing flawed jury instruction. Prosecutors decided not to retry him on that charge. In the part of his sentence that was upheld, the court found that he had supported legislation that benefited real estate developers who were referring tax business to a law firm that employed him.

Silver stepped down from her leadership position following his arrest in January 2015 and lost her legislative seat following his first conviction in November.

Silver joined a long list of state lawmakers, including other top leaders, who have been sentenced.

Source: https://wikisoon.com/