They were found guilty of a scheme where Dean Skelos used his power as Senate Majority Leader to influence companies to employ or pay his son.
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For the second time in a matter of weeks, a former top player in New York State government got convicted on Friday, the latest head to roll over what by most accounts is a cesspool of political corruption in the Empire State. The Skelos duo face up to 130 years in prison-the same amount of time former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver faces for his corruption charges. “You watch what I’m going to do”, Skelos tells his son. In one conversation highlighted in the criminal complaint, Adam Skelos complained that his father couldn’t give him “real advice” on the AbTech deal because ‘you can’t talk normal because it’s like _ing Preet Bharara is listening to every _ing phone call.
Deliberations started Thursday at the Manhattan trial of the Long Island Republican and his son, Adam Skelos.
Defense lawyers said that the former Senate leader was simply trying to help his son, and did nothing illegal.
“If this doesn’t signal to all of us that we need to fundamentally reform how Albany functions then I’m not sure what will”, Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said in a statement. In testimony, his supervisor said that Adam threatened him when he tried to get the younger Skelos to actually do his job.
Before they resigned their leadership roles after their arrests, Silver and Skelos were two of the so-called “Three Men In A Room”-the third being Gov. Andrew Cuomo-that set the state’s legislative and budget agenda”.
Prosecutors said that, shortly after he was named majority leader, Skelos secured a job for Adam at Physicians’ Reciprocal Insurers in Roslyn. The juries in both cases return verdicts within only a few days.
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The senator’s lawyer, G Robert Gage, said: “We are obviously very disappointed with the verdict.’ He said they meant to ‘vigorously” pursue post-trial court motions. “The convictions of former Speaker Silver and former Majority Leader Skelos should be a wakeup call for the Legislature and it must stop standing in the way of needed reforms”. Jeff Klein, said in a statement that “more than ever, it is imperative that we work to rebuild the public’s trust in its government”. The two began serving in the Senate more than two decades ago and have been friends for 23 years.
