A federal judge yesterday rejected Sheldon Silver’s latest attempt to avoid a spring retrial. Judge Valerie Caproni yesterday dismissed arguments made by the former Lower East Side assemblyman. The new trial on public corruption charges is scheduled to begin April 16.
An appeals court last year threw out the original 2015 conviction and 12 year prison sentence after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the definition of public corruption. Silver asked the high court to block a retrial, but it refused.
Silver stands accused in a $4 million alleged bribery and kickback scheme. In their arguments to Judge Caproni, his lawyers asserted that prosecutors failed to prove that Silver engaged in a quid-pro-quo racket. The attorneys also claimed that some of the alleged offenses did not occur within the five year statute of limitations. Caproni said the arguments from Silver’s team, “run counter to the law.”
Silver has been free on bail since his arrest in January of 2015. He was forced from his lofty perch in the state assembly following the initial conviction more than two years ago.
