NEW YORK CITY—New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested and charged in an alleged corruption and bribery scheme Thursday morning after a lengthy investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Manhattan Democrat, a lawyer who has been Assembly speaker since 1994, turned himself in to FBI agents. A five-count criminal complaint, charges Silver with a scheme to defraud, depriving the public of honest services, mail fraud, and extortion and alleges that he received more than $6 million in outside income from two law firms since late 2002.
Further, the 35-page complaint—obtained by GlobeSt.com—alleges that Silver “agreed with others known and unknown, including a co-consipirator…to use the power and influence of his position to induce certain real estate developers with significant business before the State of New York to retain [a particular law firm] in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret bribes and kickbacks paid to Silver by the law firm, which were masked as legitimate income earned by Silver as a private lawyer.”
A person familiar with the matter tells the Journal that federal investigators were looking into Silver's work with Goldberg & Iryami, a Manhattan firm that challenges real estate assessments. The speaker didn't report the firm on his state financial disclosure form, citing only his role as “of counsel” to personal-injury law firm Weitz & Luxenberg.
Individuals or companies involved in the case were not named. Silver has denied any wrongdoing and is not commenting on the case. GlobeSt.com will monitor the situation--and its ties to the real estate community—and provide updates as they become available.
“We're disappointed that the prosecutors have chosen to proceed with these meritless criminal charges,” say Silver attorneys Joel Cohen and Steven Molo. “That said, Silver looks forward to responding to them—in court—and ultimately his full exoneration.”
According to the complaint, for several years Silver has reported some of his earnings as outside income earned as a private lawyer representing individual clients at the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C. But that was a fabrication, the Journal notes.
“In truth and fact, Silver has obtained millions of dollars in outside income as a direct result of his corrupt use of his official position to obtain attorney referral fees for himself, including from clients with substantial business before the state,” instead of as legitimate outside income.
At Weitz & Luxenberg, Silver took part a scheme in which he used his position as Speaker to secretly direct state funds to an unnamed doctor's research in exchange for obtaining referrals of asbestos cases from that doctor, the complaint says. The speaker allegedly received more than $3 million in fees through that scheme.
The doctor, unnamed in the indictment, specializes in treating patients suffering from mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer, at a university in Manhattan, according to the complaint.
The complaint also accuses Silver of taking legal action and other steps to prevent the commission from learning about the schemes.
Silver earned between $650,000 and $750,000 from outside legal work in 2013, in addition to his $121,000 speaker salary, according state financial-disclosure forms.
Silver, who has served as speaker for 21 years, was re-elected on Jan. 7. He is arguably the state's second-most powerful public official and holds immense sway over the overwhelmingly Democratic Assembly chamber. He is also a close political ally of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio,having advocated for many of the mayor's agenda items in Albany this past year.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
