BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | A political tsunami hit Lower Manhattan and all of New York State last Thursday as Sheldon Sheldon, the powerful speaker of the Assembly, surrendered to the F.B.I. on multiple corruption charges.
According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Silver’s alleged crimes include two forms of graft involving his outside income over the past 10 years: namely, accepting kickbacks from a real estate law firm, as well as engaging in a quid pro quo involving asbestos patients and state funding, altogether totaling nearly $4 million.
“These charges in our view go to the very core of what ails Albany,” Bharara said last week. “Lack of transparency, lack of accountability and lack of principle, joined with an overabundance of greed, cronyism and self-dealing.”
Silver, 70, was charged with five counts of corruption, extortion and fraud, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
He turned himself in at 26 Federal Plaza at 8 a.m. Thursday. Then — with his hands cuffed behind his back — he was driven in a white Impala to nearby Federal Court and arraigned of his charges. Pleading not guilty on all counts, he was freed on $200,000 bond.
Exiting court, as TV news reporters thrust microphones at him, he said just a few words — including, “I hope I’ll be vindicated” — then walked off.
Last Friday, Silver, in conference with his fellow assemblymembers, laid out a scheme under which he hoped to retain his speakership while agreeing to delegate temporarily some of his powers — including negotiating the state budget — to a committee of five senior assemblymembers while he confronted the charges.
But his plan was panned, and by early this week, it was clear that the majority of Assembly Democrats want Silver to step down as speaker.
Joseph Morelle, the Assembly majority leader, initially conveyed to Silver the message that he had until next Tuesday to decide on whether to step down or face being ousted.
However, as of this Tuesday evening, Assembly Democrats had agreed that Morelle, who is from the Rochester area, would temporarily assume the role of acting speaker for eight days starting next Monday, as the Assembly searches for a new leader. On Feb. 10, it was reported, an election will be held to fill the speaker position permanently.
It was reported that Morelle said Silver “will not impede the transition,” while Silver said, “I will not hinder the process.”
Silver said he would retain his Assembly seat since his constituents elected him. However, if ultimately convicted of a felony he would no longer legally be allowed to serve.
In the days leading up to Tuesday evening’s news, calls for Silver to step down had been mounting.
“He should understand that he’s lost the confidence of a majority of our conference,” Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo offered that “it would be a good thing” if someone else took over as speaker, and that “governing by committee” doesn’t work.
“It’s not time to step aside; it’s actually time to step down,” City Comptroller Scott Stringer declared. “We need one leader in the Assembly, someone who can guide these budget negotiations.”
Other influential voices calling for Silver to throw in the towel included Assemblymember Keith Wright and Public Advocate Letitia James.
It’s been a swift and dramatic fall for Silver, who has been the powerful Assembly speaker for the past 20 years. A native Lower East Sider, he has represented Lower Manhattan’s 65th Assembly District since 1976.
Silver is accused of two separate schemes, occurring over the past decade. In the first, he directed real estate developers with business before the state to a small real estate law firm run by his former general counsel, for which the firm allegedly paid him $700,000.
In the second, he is accused of secretly funneling two state grants totaling $500,000 to a Columbia University cancer researcher who, in turn, referred asbestos cancer patients to Weitz and Luxenberg — the law firm where Silver is a personal-injury lawyer — which, in turn, then paid Silver a total of $3.2 million in “referral fees.”
However, investigators could not find evidence of Silver having ever done any actual work to earn the millions, and none of the allegedly ill-begotten cash was accounted for on Silver’s required Assembly financial disclosure forms.
Over the years, Silver was famously well known for resisting efforts to make him reveal information about his outside income. He has said that he earns more than $650,000 per year from the law firm, though exactly what he did for it was always shrouded in secrecy. His government salary is $121,000.
Bharara said warrants have now been issued to allow the federal government to seize $3.8 million in allegedly fraudulently acquired cash that Silver has deposited in multiple accounts in six different banks.
The investigation originally grew out of the Moreland Commission, Governor Cuomo’s anticorruption panel, which focused on probing Albany legislators’ outside income and campaign finance.
However, legislators took legal action to block the investigations into their outside income.
Cuomo abruptly shut down the panel last year, but Bharara’s office continued its investigations.
The Moreland Commission subpoenaed records from 18 law firms.
“Stay tuned,” the U.S. attorney said last week, indicating more individuals may be charged.
News of Silver’s imminent arrest was first announced early Thursday morning in a New York Times article.
State Senator Brad Hoylman was the first to call publicly — on Twitter — for Silver to step down.
“Another shameful day in Albany,” Hoylman tweeted shortly after 7 a.m. Thursday. “When we should be discussing State of the State, we are mired in state of corruption. [The] public deserves better.”
He followed that up with another tweet shortly afterward:
“Speaker Silver should resign for the good of the people of New York.”
Wednesday night, Cuomo had given his State of the State speech, with Silver seated prominently right beside him on the stage.
Hoylman has previously called for “serious new restrictions” on state politicians’ outside income, which he said is often “shady.”
Democratic District Leader Paul Newell, who ran a spirited race against Silver in the 2008 Democratic primary, issued an e-mail statement around 6 a.m. last Thursday on Silver’s “imminent arrest.”
“If the report in The New York Times is true, this is a sad day for Lower Manhattan and a sad day for New York,” Newell said.
“I can’t speak to the specific charges against the speaker, but I can say that outside income for legislators is a certain recipe for corruption. Speaker Silver and Majority Leader Skelos should have banned it long ago. The 65th Assembly District, and all New Yorkers, deserve better.”
Asked by The Villager if he thought Silver should resign, Newell said, “If the allegations are true, certainly. If not, he has the right to defend himself.”
Silver is a champion among many progressive Democrats for his support of bread-and-butter causes, like unions, teachers and programs for the poor.
Indeed, in the wake of the shocking news, Mayor Bill de Blasio voiced support for the Assembly speaker, calling him “a man of integrity,” and saying that he was owed “due process.”
Similarly, last Thursday, two of Silver’s longtime Assembly colleagues from Manhattan’s West Side, Deborah Glick and Richard Gottfried, stressed that Silver had not been convicted of anything, and praised him for his work in the Assembly.
Gottfried said that, in fact, in his view, Silver is nothing less than a political hero. And he indicated that he felt Silver should remain as speaker while the charges are being resolved.
“Speaker Silver is presumed innocent until proven guilty, like every American,” Gottfried said in a statement to The Villager. “A criminal complaint is an accusation; it is not evidence.
“I have confidence that Speaker Silver, with the strong support of the Assembly majority, will continue to do the job of working for a progressive agenda while the current charges are being resolved. New Yorkers need Speaker Silver and the Assembly majority doing that job.
“There is no one in public life in New York who has fought more effectively, for decades, for almost everything I care about in public policy than Sheldon Silver.”
Meanwhile, Glick, in a phone interview, told The Villager: “There are constitutional protections that apply to everyone, from the highest person to the lowest person. Those include the presumption of innocence. And I’ve been sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the State of New York.
“I haven’t read the full complaint,” she said. “It’s a criminal complaint — not an indictment.”
Glick added of Silver, “Obviously, he’s been upholding Democratic principles in this state.”
Ticking off just a few of the key issues that Silver has been on the right side of, Glick noted that he backed “a woman’s right to choose, marriage equality, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity” — the successful effort to ensure that New York City got its fair share of the state’s education funding.
“So he’s entitled to the presumption of innocence,” she said.
Glick has served alongside Silver in the Assembly since 1991. Gottfried was elected 44 years ago, in 1970, before Silver had even come on the scene.
Unlike Silver, though, neither Glick nor Gottfried, during their many years in elected office, has ever worked outside jobs to supplement their Assembly income.
As momentum built in the Assembly for Silver to step down, Gottfried did not respond to a request for further comment.
In response to The Villager’s request on Tuesday for more of her thoughts on the developing situation, Glick called back on Wednesday, after all the chips had fallen, and recapped the situation.
“Shelly will step down as speaker,” she said. “There’ll be an interim [speaker] for a week or so and then there’ll be an election for a new speaker.
“Shelly was charged but is not guilty until the charges are proven,” she reiterated. “Because that can take months, the sense of distraction is something that this institution cannot sustain.
“So, it’s sad. … He had a huge number of key victories,” she said, again rattling off a number of these. “We don’t have a West Side stadium because he knew it was the wrong thing to do. Obviously, we have marriage equality because he put it on the agenda and we voted on it several times before the governor stepped in to help with the Senate.”
She also claimed that Silver protected rent regulation.
“He has a great record — and it’s very sad,” she concluded.
Kavanagh, who has been outspoken in calling for Silver to step down, is a relative newcomer to the Assembly, having only served since 2007.
Last Friday, City Councilmember Margaret Chin released a statement on Silver in which she stopped short of calling for him to abdicate the speakership.
“The charges against Speaker Silver are deeply serious and deeply concerning,” Chin said. “The speaker has been a strong advocate for the Lower Manhattan community, and he has especially been a champion for local schools and affordable housing. I am personally very troubled by these allegations against the speaker, but I will refrain from passing judgment on his current legal situation until the judicial process is complete. This must not deter or distract our community from continuing to fight for the renewal of strong rent regulation in Albany and the construction of new public schools in Lower Manhattan.”
On the other hand, Councilmember Corey Johnson, in a statement to The Villager, said Silver’s remaining speaker could be a disaster for the city and that he should resign.
“In the coming months, decisions will be made in Albany that will affect the lives of millions of New Yorkers,” Johnson said. “Our rent laws are under attack, threatening the ability of thousands to stay in their homes. Mayoral control of our schools is on the table. The legal troubles of Sheldon Silver are much more than a distraction. A leadership vacuum in the Assembly may have catastrophic consequences for New York. For this reason, I believe it is time for Sheldon Silver to step down as speaker or resign.”
Similarly, the Downtown Independent Democrats political club, at a special meeting last Sunday, voted to call for Silver’s resignation and for immediate Albany reform.
The D.I.D. resolution said: “Given the serious charges against Sheldon Silver and the important business for the people of the State of New York that needs to be attended to, the Downtown Independent Democrats call for Sheldon Silver to immediately step down as Speaker of the New York State Assembly.”
The Village Independent Democrats have not yet considered a resolution on Silver since the story broke. But Nadine Hoffmann, the club’s newly elected president, said, in her view, Silver should step down.
“My own personal feeling is that of deep disappointment,” she said. “As an assemblymember and speaker, Silver made important decisions that benefitted New York City, including his budget battles that turned back many cuts to city services. While I believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ he should resign his speakership until his innocence or guilt is proven.”
V.I.D. next meets on Mon., Feb. 2, and “who knows what will happen then,” she noted.
Among the names mentioned as the most likely permanent replacement for Silver have been Morelle, Wright, Joseph Lentol from Greenpoint, Carl Heastie from the Bronx and Cathy Nolan from Queens.
Glick, too, has at times in the past been mentioned as a possible candidate for speaker.
Asked about that last Thursday, though, she said, “I’m not going to engage in any musings or hypotheticals at this point.”
In the eventuality that Silver is, in fact, convicted of a felony, meaning his Assembly seat would become open, there is no shortage of candidates who would be ready to run for the position.
Some names that have been mentioned include his former primary opponent Newell; Julie Menin, the current Department of Consumer Affairs commissioner and former Community Board 1 chairperson; and Alan van Capelle, former executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda and current president of the Educational Alliance.
“An Asian person would be a very good choice, considering the population,” offered Hank Sheinkopf, the veteran Democratic political strategist.
As for Silver, Sheinkopf said, at the end of the day, his record on the issues that matter remains very strong and merits respect.
“He has been absolutely on the right side of the big issues,” he said, “and he deserves his day in court — even if he didn’t do the right thing.”
