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Sheldon Silver, the Democratic powerhouse who ruled Albanyuntil he was convicted on federal corruption charges in a stunning fall from grace, has died. He was 77. Silver died in prison while serving out a six-and-a-half-year sentence — most recently at a federal medical center in Middlesex, Massachusetts — after he was convicted in 2018 for accepting nearly $4 million in bribes, his former chief of staff Judy Rapfogul confirmed to The Post. His cause of death wasn’t immediately clear. Shelly did many wonderful things for the community and the state,” Rapfogul said by phone as she choked up.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday attacked President Trump over a potential pardon of Sheldon Silver, the corrupt former speaker of the New York Assembly — and suggested it could be “a favor for someone in the Jewish community.” During a radio interview in Albany, Cuomo called the notion of freeing Silver from prison — where the Manhattan Democrat is serving 6 1/2 years for a $4 million bribery and kickbacks scheme — “just confounding” and the culmination of “four years of bizarre.” “It’s almost as if he’s trying to purposefully create anarchy and desecrate the entire system on the way...

Rumor has it that President Trump is considering pardoning Sheldon Silver, former speaker of the Assembly and criminal. We hope it is just that: rumors. Silver had a nice racket going as one of Albany’s most powerful. He would arrange for state money to be paid to a cancer researcher at Columbia University. That researcher would refer cancer-stricken subjects to a law firm associated with Silver; they would pay the speaker a fee. Essentially, he was laundering taxpayer money for his own pockets, to the tune of $3.9 million in fees. Silver remained unrepentant during his trial. He has used...

Sheldon Silver is finally getting at least some of what he deserves: real time behind bars. On Wednesday, Silver, 76, turned himself in at Otisville Correctional Facility, a medium-security federal prison about 80 miles northwest of the city, to at long last start serving his 6 ½ years for accepting bribes (nearly $4 million worth), money-laundering, extortion and other crimes committed as speaker of the state Assembly.

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was sentenced Monday to 6 1/2 years in prison in the corruption case that drove him from power as a judge said she hoped to “send a message to Albany.” U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni sentenced Silver, 76, for the third time, acknowledging that a man who was once one of the three most powerful state officials came closer than ever before to properly expressing remorse. But she said it remained unclear as to whether “he really gets it,” and she shaved only six months off the seven-year prison sentence she announced in 2018,...

Was Sheldon Silver sentenced today for his bribery conviction?

New York state’s disgraced former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver just got another get-out-of-jail-free card — thanks to a new appeals court ruling. In the latest twist in Silver’s ongoing prison saga, a Manhattan federal appeals court has ruled that the convicted Democrat can stay out of jail until the court hears his request for bail pending appeal. Silver, 74, had been ordered to turn himself in to the Bureau of Prisons on Oct. 5 to begin his seven-year sentence for $4 million in kickbacks he pocketed in a 10-year period as speaker of the Assembly.

Sheldon Silver, a former New York Assembly speaker who brokered legislative deals for two decades before criminal charges abruptly ended his career, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison by a judge who said political corruption in the state must end. The punishment, announced by U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, amounts to five fewer years in prison than she gave him after he was initially convicted in the case in 2015. She noted that the conviction of the 74-year-old Democrat came in a year in which Joseph Percoco, a once-close aide to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and former...

The New York attorney general’s dark-side personal life was an open secret in Democratic Party circles. New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman has resigned, just hours after it was reported that he had been accused of violent assaults on women he had dated. These allegations, which include threats that Schneiderman made to stalk and kill the women if they told on him, came as a shock—except to anyone who has followed his career in politics. Schneiderman’s louche ethics have been well known. You didn’t need an “in” at Albany watering holes; just reading the newspapers would have told you...

The state appeals court on Thursday overturned the Sheldon Silver's 2015 corruption conviction for pocketing $4 million in kickbacks from a cancer researcher and real estate developers. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2016. But he appealed earlier this year after the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of "official act" for the purposes of proving corruption cases. That Supreme Court case centered on alleged criminal conduct by former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. In Silver's case, the court ruled his jury was given a too-broad definition of what constitutes an "official act" in light of the Supreme...

De Blasio, Clinton cronies are carving up the city. Right, developer Bruce RatnerBy Micah Morrison In New York City, the controversy plagued Atlantic Yards development appears to be heading for trouble again. That could create problems for Mayor Bill de Blasio and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Allies of both Democrats have profited mightily from the project. For over a decade, Atlantic Yards has been at the center of heated disputes over power, profit and privilege in New York. Does the site serve the needs of the taxpayers who financed its development? Or is it primarily a giant boondoggle generating...

Former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, for decades one of the state’s most powerful politicians, was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years in prison for collecting millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks. U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court she hoped the sentence would deter corruption among other politicians. Silver, 72, had cast a shadow over whatever accomplishments he had as a lawmaker by participating in corruption, Caproni said. “Here’s the thing about corruption: It makes the public very cynical,” she said. The judge ordered Silver to pay a fine of $1.75...

For two decades, Sheldon Silver served as one of the most powerful men in New York State. On Tuesday, a judge ordered he serve the next 12 years in prison.

You may recall the unpleasant bit of Democratic Party history when former New York Assembly Speaker and Democratic power broker Sheldon Silver was convicted by a jury of his peers on multiple counts of corruption and removed from office. Silver was the man who, for decades, essentially ran the Democratic Party in the Empire State behind the curtains, determining who received state government dollars, which legislators received plum committee assignments and which bills would see the light of day for a vote. He also tightly controlled the flow of budget money, much to his own benefit. Well, his trial date...

A former state Senate leader and his son were convicted Friday of federal extortion charges, marking the second time in a month that one of Albany's most powerful politicians was run out office following a case that put the state capital's political culture on trial. The prosecution of Republican Dean Skelos, 67, and his 33-year-old son, Adam, cast a harsh light on politics-as-usual, much like the one against former Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was convicted of bribery on Nov. 30. ...

In 2008, Hillary Clinton called Sheldon Silver 'a stalwart voice on behalf of the needs of New Yorkers.' The news, yesterday: 'Silver, 71, a Manhattan Democrat, was convicted on all seven counts against him. The charges of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering stemmed from schemes by which he obtained nearly $4 million in exchange for using his position to help benefit a cancer researcher and two real estate developers.'

Three men who created the infamous SAFE act in New York have been accused of extortion and corruption.  One of them, Sheldon Silver, has been convicted.  The second, former Senate Leader Dean Skelos, is undergoing trial.  The third, Governor Cuomo, has shown up often in testimony, but has not been charged. The charges against Mr. Silver upended the status quo in Albany, and were followed in short order by the indictment of another one of the room’s three men, former Senate Leader Dean Skelos. Mr. Skelos, a Republican, is on trial just across the street from the courthouse where...

Sheldon Silver has gone from one of Albany's famed "three men in a room" to one of 198,000 people in federal lockup. A jury found the 71-year-old former Assembly Speaker guilty on all seven corruption charges Tuesday, sending a powerful message to politicians in New York's capital. Judge Valerie Caproni will set the date of his surrender. He faces a maximum of 130 years behind bars, though he is expected to face a sentence more in the range of 20 years. The verdict is a major victory for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who slammed Albany as "a cauldron of...

In separate federal courthouses in Lower Manhattan this month, two of the most powerful men in New York are about to go on trial, an extraordinary spectacle centering on allegations of corruption, bribery and nepotism in the highest chambers of political power. Stories from Our Advertisers But even as the men, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, the former speaker, and Senator Dean G. Skelos, the former majority leader, fight the charges and attempt to restore their reputations, something else will also be on trial: the culture of Albany, the state capital. Court papers in the two cases suggest that testimony in Federal...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A grand jury returned an indictment of Sheldon Silver, the former New York State Assembly speaker, for federal corruption charges on Thursday, federal prosecutors said.