Sheldon Silver – the once-powerful State Assembly Speaker who was convicted last year on seven counts including fraud, extortion, and money laundering – was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison, and he’s asked a federal judge to send him to a minimum-security prison that offers town-hall meetings for inmates and “quiet time” every night.
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It simply said, “Today’s decision sent a simple message that officials who abuse the public’s trust will be held accountable”.
He also must pay another $1.75 million in fines.
One of the most important changes lawmakers want to make is closing the pension loophole because despite his conviction, Silver is set to receive a $79,000 pension per year at the expense of taxpayers.
Silver, a 72-year-old Manhattan Democrat, lowered his head and closed his eyes as U.S. Judge Valerie Caproni announced his fate. Silver was ordered to surrender to prison by noon on July 1.
Assemblywoman Jane Corwin called for reform of legislative rules following the sentencing Tuesday of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
She expressed the hope that Silver’s sentence would serve as a deterrent to politicians and generate a “fear of living out his golden years in an orange jumpsuit”.
Caproni outlined why she thought Silver deserved a serious sentence, saying it was “certainly one that went far beyond the community service his lawyers had requested”.
“I let down my family, I let down my colleagues, I let down my constituents”, he told the judge.
Silver was an example of the “show-me-the-money culture” in the state capital of Albany, Bharara said when Silver was arrested in January 2015.
“I am not going to impose a guidelines sentence in this case”, Caproni said, explaining it would be “draconian and unjust” given his age. He also acknowledged that he “failed” the people of NY and hurt his constituents “terribly”.
At the end of the day, though, he was a “scheming, corrupt politician”, for whom the indictments of other politicians had “not one iota” of effect, she said.
United States Attorney Preet Bharara, who brought the case, tweeted the “stiff sentence is a just and fitting end to Sheldon Silver’s long career of corruption”.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of more than 14 years while defense attorneys argued for home detention.
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The optics of reaping large referral fees would have been bad, but Silver survived bad press for most of his 21 years as speaker.
