Put Silver in prison

Five years after Shelly Silver (remember him?) was first arrested by then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (remember him?) and the FBI, a Manhattan federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that the ousted assembly speaker is a criminal, upholding four out of seven charges against him. This follows the unanimous verdict of 12 federal jurors in 2016 and another 12 federal jurors in 2018 after the same appeals court threw out the first case.

Will someone please now send this convict to prison?

We can only hope, but the shameless Silver has managed to avoid even a night in the clink since the feds grabbed him on Jan. 22, 2015, in contrast to his co-crook, booted Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who has been making license plates as guest of Uncle Sam for the last year. We’re betting that Silver will keep appealing, first to the full appeals bench and then the U.S. Supreme Court. Anything to avoid taking his just punishment.

Silver’s offenses go beyond his various felonious activities to corrupt the legislative process to illegally enrich himself. He ruled the Assembly as a dictator, destroying the intended democratic nature of the institution. And he ruled very badly, unbelievably repealing the very small tax that commuters from the suburbs contributed to New York City. The commuter tax would be bringing in a billion dollars a year today.

Silver doesn’t care. He’s free and collecting his $80,000 annual pension, a walking insult to the rule of law.