I saw this earlier but was just reminded of it when I saw the thread about Harry Reid. For those who may not know who Silver is and his influence in Democrat dominated NY politics:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-state-assembly-speaker-sheldon-silver-faces-arrest-1421909938. In NY Silver was as powerful as Reid was (still is?) in NV.
This kind of corruption seems to be inevitable wherever Democrats dominate with little or no oversight.
"Sheldon Silver has gone from one of Albany’s famed “three men in a room” to one of 198,000 people in federal lockup.
A jury found the 71-year-old former Assembly Speaker guilty on all seven corruption charges Tuesday, sending a powerful message to politicians in New York’s capital.
Judge Valerie Caproni will set the date of his surrender. He faces a maximum of 130 years behind bars, though he is expected to face a sentence more in the range of 20 years.
The verdict is a major victory for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who slammed Albany as “a cauldron of corruption” when he announced charges against the Lower East Side democrat in January.
“Today, Sheldon Silver got justice, and at long last, so did the people of New York,” the U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement after the verdict was revealed.
Over three weeks the government presented ample evidence of Silver’s efforts to conceal twin corruption schemes that earned him $4 million.
Silver, the former state Assembly Speaker, was accused of two separate schemes. In the first, prosecutors said he secretly directed $500,000 in state money to Columbia University Dr. Robert Taub’s mesothelioma research. The decorated doctor testified that he gave Silver leads on his patients who were suffering from the deadly effects of asbestos exposure. The Lower East Side democrat then directed those patients to the firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which paid Silver $3 million in referral fees.
Taub testified that Silver had told him to keep their arrangement under wraps. Prosecutors noted that Silver found other ways to do favors for Taub once the pot of money he’d used to fund the doctor’s research was eliminated through state legislation. New transparency requirements also dissuaded Silver from giving Taub any more money, prosecutors said.
In the second scheme Silver, 71, directed two major developers – Glenwood Management and the Witkoff Group – to use the firm Goldberg & Iryami for litigation challenging city tax assessments. That firm secretly paid Silver $700,000 in referral fees.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sheldon-silver-guilty-of-all-7-corruption-charges/ar-AAfR7qf?ocid=spartanntpOne thing I have noticed is that this verdict does not seem to have generated much national attention. Wonder why?
