The jury started deliberations Tuesday in the corruption case of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, after a three-week trial, but the deliberations are off to a rocky start. However, federal Judge Valerie Caproni said it was too early to excuse a juror.
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Prosecutors said they wanted the woman replaced by an alternate juror, while Silver’s defense team said she should continue hashing things out with the rest of the jury.
For the prosecutors, it was an opportunity to lay out simply the case they’d painstakingly built with a mountain of circumstantial evidence.
Sheldon Silver may be used to long days and late nights here at the state Capitol, but a long day and a half may be coming up for him in NY City.
Silver is charged with taking bribes and kickbacks amounting to millions of dollars using his powerful position in the assembly. “I think my attorneys did a very good job”, says Silver. Quid pro quo or goodwill?
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The 71-year-old Democrat faces charges including honest services fraud, extortion, and money laundering. Everything Mr. Silver did in the two corruption schemes he is accused of undertaking was about the “money”, Mr. Goldstein said.
