31 Facts About Sheldon Silver

Sheldon Silver was an American Democratic Party politician, attorney, and convicted felon from New York City who served as speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1994 to 2015.

Sheldon Silver was arrested on federal corruption charges in early 2015, and resigned as Speaker of the Assembly shortly afterward.

Sheldon Silver's conviction was overturned on appeal, but in May 2018, following a retrial, he was found guilty on the same charges.

Sheldon Silver was incarcerated in the federal prison at Otisville, New York.

Sheldon Silver was released on May 4,2021, under a provision of the CARES Act, which allows prison bureaus to release those deemed vulnerable to COVID-19, but was recalled to a medical-care specialized federal prison at Devens, Massachusetts two days later on May 6.

Sheldon Silver died at a medical center in Ayer, Massachusetts, on January 24,2022, while still serving his sentence.

An Orthodox Jew whose parents were Russian immigrants, Sheldon Silver was a native of Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Sheldon Silver graduated from the Rabbi Jacob Joseph High School on Henry Street, where he was captain of the basketball team.

Sheldon Silver graduated from Yeshiva University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965, and earned his Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in 1968.

On February 11,1994, after Saul Weprin died from a stroke, Sheldon Silver became the Speaker of the New York State Assembly.

In 1997 and throughout his Assembly career, Sheldon Silver was a key advocate of state-administered rent regulation of New York apartments.

In 1999, Sheldon Silver was instrumental in the repeal of New York City's commuter tax on non-resident earners.

Sheldon Silver was criticized by city leaders for removing the tax, and although he suggested he would support reinstating it after the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001, he took no steps to do so.

In 2000, Sheldon Silver faced an attempted "coup" in the Assembly as members, primarily from Upstate New York and dissatisfied with his leadership style, tried to overthrow him as Speaker.

An editorial in The Buffalo News, written in response, criticized Sheldon Silver for having too much power:.

Sheldon Silver decides what the Assembly will accept in a state budget.

Sheldon Silver negotiates secretly with the other two leaders to hammer out important, expensive and far-reaching laws.

In July 2007, Sheldon Silver was skeptical about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New York congestion pricing program.

New York became the last of the 50 states to allow the sport in early 2016, after Sheldon Silver had been expelled from the Assembly.

Similar settlements in 2012 and 2015 resulted from multiple harassment charges against former Assemblyman Vito Lopez, and Sheldon Silver was accused of not acting forcefully to prevent Lopez's behavior.

On January 7,2015, Sheldon Silver was re-elected Speaker of the New York State Assembly for the 11th time, with almost unanimous support from the Democratic majority despite an ongoing federal probe into his outside income.

Sheldon Silver was charged with extortion, wire fraud, and mail fraud.

Sheldon Silver was alleged to have persuaded developers who had business with the state to use the firm, which in turn generated $700,000 in referral fees to Sheldon Silver.

Investigators led by US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara charged that Sheldon Silver did not properly disclose the payments from the firm on his annual financial disclosure filings with the state.

Sheldon Silver received two prison terms: 12 years for six criminal counts against him and 10 years on the seventh, to run concurrently.

The Supreme Court decision in the McDonnell case narrowed the kinds of activities that could constitute corruption, and Sheldon Silver's conviction was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan on July 13,2017.

Sheldon Silver was due to report to prison on October 5,2018, but this was stayed as he again appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Sheldon Silver reported to federal prison at Otisville, New York, on August 26,2020.

Joseph Spector and Jon Campbell in the Observer Dispatch said that, "for more than two decades" Sheldon Silver "was one of the most powerful and feared politicians in New York".

At the time of his death, Sheldon Silver was imprisoned at the Devens Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts.

Sheldon Silver died at Nashoba Valley Medical Center in nearby Ayer, Massachusetts, on January 24,2022, less than a month before his 78th birthday.