Ex-N.Y. lawmaker gets 7-year sentence

NEW YORK — Sheldon Silver, a former New York Assembly speaker who brokered legislative deals for two decades before criminal charges abruptly ended his career, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison by a judge who said political corruption in the state must end.

The punishment, announced by U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, amounts to five fewer years in prison than she gave him after he was initially convicted in the case in 2015.

Caproni noted that the conviction of the 74-year-old Democrat came in a year in which Joseph Percoco, a onceclose aide to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and former New York Senate leader Dean Skelos, a Republican, also were convicted at corruption trials.

Until 2015, Cuomo, Silver and Skelos made up what was known in Albany as “three men in a room” who every year negotiated the state budget and important legislation behind closed doors. First elected in 1976, Silver served as speaker for 21 years, resigning after his 2015 arrest from a seat that served lower Manhattan.

Before announcing the prison term and a $1.75 million fine, Caproni said Silver seemed to have aged more than would be normal in the past three years while his case has proceeded.

Silver’s original conviction was tossed out by an appeals court, but he fared no better at a second trial this spring. A jury once again found him guilty of taking nearly $4 million in return for legislative favors he performed for a cancer researcher and real estate developers.

In a letter to the judge, Silver had begged for mercy.

“I pray I will not die in prison,” Silver wrote.

His sentencing comes 10 days after Skelos and his son, Adam, were convicted of extortion, wire fraud and bribery at a retrial for each of them.