The federal prosecution of Sheldon Silver is “the most prominent public corruption trial to be held in New York City in decades,” as the New York Times noted this morning. But it is, of course, also a major local story on the Lower East Side, where the former Assembly speaker has lived his entire life.
In opening statements delivered yesterday, prosecutors detailed their case against Silver and, for the first time, attorneys for the assemblyman articulated their defense strategy: portraying the U.S. Attorney as an overzealous prosecutor determined to take down a dedicated public servant using trumped up charges.
The opening statements were moved from Judge Valerie Caproni’s normal fourth floor courtroom to a large, ornate hall on the ground floor of the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse. It was standing room only, as members of the U.S Attorneys office, curious law students and members of Silver’s family came to witness the dramatic face off. In the front row were the assemblyman’s wife, Rosa, as well as three young grandchildren. Silver walked around the room, greeting a few people and he cracked a smile or two before the court session got underway. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara sat in the back of the courtroom during the proceedings.
In introductory remarks, Judge Caproni spoke to the nine women and three men of the jury, laying out the fraud, extortion and money laundering charges against Mr. Silver. The prosecution, she said, has the burden of proving a “quid pro quo” and also that Mr. Silver “knowingly had an intent to defraud” the people of New York.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Cohen then took her turn before the jurors, telling them that the high profile prosecution is about “power, greed and corruption.”
“This is a case about a powerful politician,” she asserted, “who betrayed those he was supposed to serve to line his pockets… Year after year after year, Sheldon Silver was on the take.” Cohen said he told “lie after lie” over the years to prevent his colleagues in Albany and the voters of the 65th Assembly District from learning about two kickback and bribery schemes.
Those alleged schemes, prosecutors believe, netted nearly $4 million for the longtime Lower East Side lawmaker. “The defendant used his law license,” Cohen said, “to disguise his bribes and kickbacks as attorney fees.” Silver’s actions, she argued, amounted to an abuse of power. “It was not politics as usual… (but) illegal, criminal conduct… At this trial the truth will finally come out.”
According to Cohen, Silver “funneled half a million dollars of taxpayer money and other official benefits” to a cancer researcher at Columbia University, Dr. Robert Taub. In exchange, the feds allege, the doctor sent victims of mesothelioma to Weitz & Luxenberg, where Silver held the title “of counsel.” The firm specializes in asbestos cases. This “quid pro quo,” Cohen said, was worth $3 million in payments to Silver. The state grants to Taub, she told jurors, came from ‘a secret pot of money that Silver, and Silver alone, controlled.”
In a second alleged scheme, Cohen asserted, Silver used his influence to pressure two prominent developers — Glenwood Management and the Witkoff Group — to hire Goldberg & Iryami, a law firm that handles property tax cases. A partner in the firm, Jay Goldberg, then agreed to give Silver a portion of the legal fees from those clients, she said. The prosecution noted that the real estate companies had “massive business before the state.” They were dependent on lucrative tax credits approved by the State Legislature. “This is just how much power and influence the speaker had over real estate,” said Cohen. “He held the fate of their business in his hands.”
Publicly, she noted, Silver was a big advocate for tenants. But when rent regulation laws came up for renewal, Cohen said, “the real negotiations took place in private meetings with lobbyists,” and the version of the rent law Glenwood wanted was the one that reached the governor’s desk. “Silver did not bite the hand that fed him,” Cohen added,” as he allegedly collected three-quarters of a million dollars in kickbacks from the development firms.
In closing, Cohen told the jury, “In this case the government will bring you behind the defendant’s wall of lies,” and in the end, she said, “you will return the only verdict consistent with the facts: Sheldon Silver is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Defense attorney Steven Molo presented a very different version of events, saying Sheldon Silver “is not guilty and has not committed a crime.” He admitted that politicians are not very popular these days but added, “Just because (Silver) is a politician does not mean he’s not (entitled to) a presumption of innocence.”
Molo said the U.S. Attorney obviously doesn’t care for New York’s system of government, and bizarrely decided to effect change through a misguided prosecution. “If prosecutors don’t like that system,” he said, “they can do what democracies do: they can go to the people and ask for change.”
After asking Silver to stand up, Molo told jurors that he’s “as New York as New York gets.” Recounting Silver’s upbringing on the Lower east Side, he noted that the assemblyman still lives in the neighborhood. Molo explained that Mr. Silver has represented Lower Manhattan since 1976, and that he served as speaker for two decades. The issues underlying this case – protecting affordable housing and backing cancer research – have been twisted, Molo asserted, into criminal charges.
“(The prosecutors) look at conduct which is legal,” he argued, “conduct which is normal, conduct which allows government to function consistent with the way that our founding fathers of the state of New York wanted it to function, and they say this is illegal.”
New York, he explained, has a part-time Legislature by design. It assures that lawmakers bring a range of experiences to Albany. “But they also bring inherent conflicts of interest,” Molo said. “It’s impossible, absolutely impossible, for a member of the Assembly to do his or her job and to go out, make laws, deal with people, do the job that a person in the Assembly does and not have some form of conflict of interest.”
“There are a whole bunch of things they (prosecutors) don’t like,” said Molo. “They don’t like outside income… Lawyers can be paid (for referrals)… It’s perfectly legal. They don;t like private meetings. They don’t like that friends do things for friends. None of these things are a crime and they do not amount to Sheldon Silver selling his office.”
Molo said Silver was instrumental in winning new protections for tenants in 2011. While prosecutors allege the rent law that year was the result of a dirty deal behind closed doors, Molo said, it was instead the product of “skillful diplomacy” by high-ranking assembly staff, who were “empowered by Mr. Silver.”
As for the referrals from Dr. Taub, Molo said it was not at all unusual that cancer patients would have gone to Weitz & Luxenberg. He noted that it’s “the premier firm for asbestos claims” in New York. “The prosecution claims these were bribes,” said Molo. “It’s not true.” As proof, he pointed out that patients from Dr. Taub continued to show up at Weitz & Luxenberg’s doorstep long after the state grants were awarded in 2005 and 2006.
In conclusion, Molo told the jury, “You will not find that Sheldon Silver had a corrupt intent or that there was a bribery scheme.” The prosecution has pulled “bits and pieces” of evidence and are “leveling false criminal charges against one of the senior legislative officers, senior government officials in this state.”
