May 12 (UPI) — A federal jury found former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver guilty of corruption charges less than a year after an appeals court threw out his conviction on the same charges.
The jury deliberated for an hour and a half after a two-week trial in Manhattan and found him guilty of all seven charges he faced, including honest services mail fraud and money laundering.
Silver, 74, was convicted of obtaining nearly $4 million in illicit payments in return for taking official actions that benefited others. Silver had obtained payments on behalf of a prominent cancer researcher, Dr. Robert Taub of Columbia University, and two real estate developers, Glenwood Management and the Witkoff Group.
In addition to trading favors with the real estate developers, it was determined that Silver found jobs for two women he had extramarital affairs with.
“Sheldon Silver repeatedly used his enormous public power for his own enormous private gain,” prosecutor Tatiana R. Martins told the jury Thursday.
Silver, who was sentenced to 12 years in his first trial, faces up to 130 years in prison. He served more than two decades as state assembly speaker.
