Guilty as charged

helly Silver always wins” was the phrase we had around here to explain how, over the decades, the wily Assembly dictator got away with everything as he ran New York’s Legislature like a personal fief and kept adding to his power.

But finally in 2015, after more than two decades in charge, Silver lost and lost it all as Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s prosecutors exposed cheap extortion schemes to squeeze $4 million for himself from people with business before the state.

In long overdue punishment for abuses of precious public trust, he was going away, for 12 years.

Thursday, Silver’s win streak resumed, as a three-judge federal appeals panel vacated his conviction, saying the trial judge’s jury instructions were superseded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

But Silver remains guilty as sin of abusing the government for his own ends. A second trial should leave no doubt of that fact.

In 2016, the high court quashed the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on the ground that, though he and his wife pocketed lavish gifts from donors seeking favors, it didn’t amount to a crime because the givers didn’t wind up getting anything concrete in return.

But that didn’t happen with Silver. His benefactors got plenty of goodies as a result of the speaker’s acts. Among the transactions: $500,000 in state grants to a doctor who steered asbestosrelated cancer patients to Silver’s law firm, and legislation favorable to a real estate developer that agreed to use another law firm that secretly steered Silver kickbacks.

Presented with exhaustive evidence of the above, the appellate judges ruled the government had succeeded in proving its case — and that, but for the obsolete jury instructions, Silver’s conviction would have held.

With Bharara fired by President Trump, it now falls to his No. 2, Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, to plow ahead with a new trial. The case is clear.

And while that long process runs its course, it falls to craven state legislators and a too-cautious Gov. Cuomo to fix broken New York laws that make it legal to give a bribe, as long as that quid can’t be simply connected to a quo.

Those statutes, combined with sky-high campaign donation limits, and a loophole for giving by shell corporations, and a steady stream of outside income to legislators, and inadequate disclosure, invite corrosive corruption.

Fix the laws and reform Albany — or the Shelly Silvers of tomorrow will always win and the public will always lose.