Doc set to make you sick, Shelly!
Scandal physician will dump on Silver & firm at trial
The doctor at the center of the corruption charges against former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver “disapproved” of him and his law firm and referred cancer patients there only as long as Silver was funneling him state money for research, new court papers claim.
Dr. Robert Taub allegedly was so unhappy with the deal to send asbestosrelated cancer patients to Silver that once the speaker stopped their quid pro quo, the physician began referring his patients to more ethical lawyers, the paper says.
Taub, who got nearly of $500,000 in state money for his research funneled to him from Silver, didn’t like that the firm failed to give any of the millions it made off cancer cases to mesothelioma research.
“The Government expects that Dr. Taub will testify that for many years he disapproved of [Silver’s] law firm Weitz & Luxenberg because it made millions of dollars from representing mesothelioma victims (enough to buy ‘private jets’), and yet it did not donate money to support mesothelioma research,” federal prosecutors wrote in the new court papers, which were filed Monday.
“Because of this disapproval, but for Dr. Taub’s quid pro quo relationship with the defendant, Dr. Taub would not have sent dozens of patients to Silver at Weitz & Luxenberg, resulting in millions of dollars to Silver personally.”
Federal prosecutors revealed the new details about the Columbia University doctor’s state of mind in advance of Silver’s Manhattan federal court trial on corruption charges, which is slated to begin Nov. 2.
An email Taub sent to an unidenti fied member of the nonprofit Simmons Mesothelioma Foundation in 2010 shows how much the doctor disliked Weitz & Luxenberg.
Dr. Taub stated that he mentioned to the patient that Simmons “is interested in supporting meso research throughout the country, not just private jets,” says the email, which is filed as an exhibit to the new court papers.
Taub also claims in the email that a Weitz & Luxenberg lawyer had already called an 80yearold cancer patient he was treating and trying to refer to the foundation, noting that the moneyhungry attorney told the patient he would be charged 30 percent of the settlement fee.
“Boy, the environment for new cases in NY is canineeatcanine,” Taub wrote in the email.
The new court papers also state that Taub stopped sending patients
to Silver once Silver stopped funneling him state money for cancer research — further evidence of a quid pro quo, according to prosecutors.
“The evidence will show that Dr. Taub began sent patients to Simmons instead of to Silver at Weitz & Luxenberg in 2010, after Silver had stopped supporting Dr. Taub’s research with State money, and Simmons had begun to support Dr. Taub’s research with its own funds — a fact that was made known to Silver by Dr. Taub,” prosecutors wrote in the court papers.
Taub, 78, was removed from his position as director of Columbia University’s Mesothelioma Center — where he had worked for 30 years — after Silver was indicted in February.
A Manhattan Supreme Court justice recently ruled that the tenured professor can keep his position until a special hearing is held to determine whether he can stay on, but he has to post a $350,000 bond in case he loses so the school can easily recover his salary and other costs if they win, The Post exclusively reported earlier this month.
Taub got a nonprosecution deal from Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, under terms of an immunity order, which means he will avoid prosecution for telling what he knows.
A sealed document was also filed in the Silver docket Monday.
It’s unclear what the document was, but Manhattan federal court Judge Valerie Caproni closed her courtroom during a hearing last week so that lawyers could argue about whether unknown sensitive evidence could be admitted at trial.
Silver’s defense attorneys didn’t respond to emails seeking comment on Monday evening.
The probe into Silver’s office also turned up incriminating material about former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who also now also faces corruption raps in Manhattan federal court.
The prosecutors sent a grandjury subpoena to the Glenwood realestate companyuin May 2014 as part of their probe into kickbacks pocketed by Silver, according to the Manhattan federal court papers filed earlier this month.
“As part of the document requests, the Silver [Glenwood] subpoena asked for all documents concerning political contributions to state officials or parties, and concerning the New York State Legislature,” the court papers stated.
“In addition to the materials about Dean Skelos produced by Developer1, starting in or about May 2014, the Government began issuing grand jury subpoenas related to Dean Skelos.”
During public portions of Friday’s 2¹/₂hour hearing, Caproni ruled against Silver and said that multiple pieces of potentially incriminating evidence could be shown to the jury at trial.
The Lower East Side assemblyman’s attorneys had tried to keep from jurors certain pieces of evidence, including his allegedly incomplete financialdisclosure forms and his attempts to halt construction of a methadone clinic in an alleged quid pro quo with a realestate developer.
But Caproni said she would allow testimony on the clinic and the disclosure forms.