The jury has been selected for Sheldon Silver’s retrial on federal corruption charges.
According to the New York Post, the 12-person panel includes a retired flight attendant, a retired teacher and a nurse in Mt. Sinai’s critical care department. It was a fairly simple process. Judge Valerie Caproni wrapped up jury selection in a single day yesterday. Opening statements, however, won’t begin until April 30 because a key witness is dealing with a medical situation.
Silver, the former Lower East Side assemblyman, was convicted in a kickback and bribery scheme in 2015. But the verdict was thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the legal definition of public corruption.
A lot has changed since the original trial. Yesterday at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan the former assembly speaker’s case was little more than an afterthought. That’s because the media world was consumed by the Michael Cohen-Stormy Daniels Show.
