Silver was speaker from 1994 until his arrest in January 2015 on corruption charges. “… While Silver and Skelos deserve their prison sentences, the people of NY deserve better”. Earlier in the day, she sentenced his father, Long Island Republican Dean Skelos, to five years in prison.
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Prosecutors said the elder Skelos, a legislator with three decades of service, used his position as majority leader to pressure companies – including a medical malpractice insurer, a real estate developer and an environmental technology company – into enriching Adam Skelos through a direct payment of $20,000, consulting work, and a job at which the younger Skelos was essentially a no-show, the Times reported.
The sentence, which was less than prosecutors had wanted, came a few minutes after a grim-faced Skelos apologized.
One of the state’s top lawmakers – convicted on corruption charges – will be sentenced on Thursday. “All New Yorkers who believe in clean government owe them an enormous debt of gratitude”.
In sentencing memos to Wood, lawyers for both men cited personal factors as a basis for leniency.
Because with the fates of Silver and Skelos now sealed – at least until their appeals are heard – all eyes will return to the ongoing high-profile probes into both the Cuomo and de Blasio administrations. Their arguments will likely focus on the potential effect a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision could have on the Skelos convictions.
Judge Wood said that Adam Skelos’s bullying and threats required a sentence that deters him from such behavior in the future.
“The things I do to stay out”, Adam Skelos said on the recording. “Somewhere along the line, my judgment became clouded”.
“To his great credit as a person as well as a parent, Dean stuck by Adam”, Mr. Gage said.
Former Senate majority leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, are scheduled to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday morning.
Lawyers for the Skeloses had asked Judge Wood to spare them from prison. His son, Adam, was sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison.
Prosecutors had initially recommended the two get about double the prison time they were sentenced for. In its sentencing memo, Skelos’ legal team called the conviction a “complete aberration in an otherwise extraordinary and honorable record of service”.
Wood said allowing the defendants to avoid prison would not serve the interests of justice.
Mr. Gage highlighted some of Mr. Skelos’s accomplishments in the Legislature, and contended that the underlying theme of the case was “this father-son emotional connection”. She predicts that without changes, more lawmakers may have to face consequences. Added the former State Senate leader: “For that I apologize to Adam”.
Former Senate majority leader Dean Skelos reacts as he leaves court in New York, Thursday, May 12, 2016. Silver received 12 years in prison in a bribery case. They were also ordered to pay $500,000 in fines.
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Governor Cuomo abruptly shuttered his own Moreland Act commission on corruption.
