Prosecutors seek tougher sentence for Skelos

A former New York state Senate leader convicted of public corruption charges should be given a longer prison term than he received at a previous sentencing, prosecutors told a judge Friday.

They said in papers in Manhattan federal court that Dean Skelos deserves more than the five years he initially got because he repeatedly lied while testifying at a summer retrial.

“When he testified, Dean Skelos clearly came prepared with false or implausible stories to attempt to explain away or distract the jury from the most devastating evidence of his guilt,” prosecutors wrote.

They said Skelos, 70, repeatedly tried to minimize his conduct during three days of testimony and tried to ignore or deny obvious facts so he could mislead the jury.

“He was evasive and misleading at times, and on several occasions he flat out lied about facts large and small,” prosecutors said.

They asked that the onetime powerful Republican receive at least as much prison time as the 6½ years that was given his son, Adam, at sentencing after both were convicted at a 2015 trial.

Those convictions were rejected on appeal by 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges who concluded a retrial would be necessary to conform with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling narrowing the law regarding public corruption.

Dean Skelos and his 36-year-old son were convicted again in July on extortion, wire fraud and bribery charges. Sentencing is set for Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood.

Prosecutors say Skelos pressured businesses to give his son no-show jobs or risk losing his political support, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled to his son.

Lawyers for Dean Skelos said he should get no more than two years in prison. They cited what they called his extraordinary public and private service and said “few public corruption cases, if any, have more persuasive mitigating factors.”

They said Dean Skelos has struggled for decades with clinical depression and the “mental and emotional toll of these trials has been stark and extreme.”

Yet, they said, he looked after two grandsons who suffer from autism after Adam Skelos and his wife divorced following the first trial. The lawyers also said the “strain of this trial has caused a rift between father and son.”

In sentencing papers on behalf of Adam Skelos, lawyers wrote that he is a changed man who has forged a stronger bond with his fiancée, her family, his adoptive mother and his biological parents.

They asked he receive no more than a year and a day in prison.