According to multiple reports, the FBI has taken New York assembly speaker Sheldon Silver into custody following a corruption investigation. Silver is widely thought to know more about the internal workings of Albany than any other person, so if he begins talking things could get interesting. Our previous coverage of Silver — and there’s been a lot — is here, or chronologically at this tag. My coverage of him 2005-2010 at Point of Law is here.
More: The complaint (courtesy WSJ) alleges improprieties with income both from a real estate law firm and from asbestos legal cases. On the latter, it alleges that Silver directed state research money to a university doctor in Manhattan, and that the doctor referred lucrative asbestos cases to Silver’s firm of Weitz & Luxenberg. The doctor is described as a “well-known expert” who “conducts mesothelioma research” and who had created a center at his university by or before 2002 related to that subject. The doctor, not named in the complaint, “has entered into an agreement with the USAO SDNY [U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York] under which he will not be prosecuted for the conduct described herein, and that obligates him to provide truthful information to and cooperate with the government.” [pp. 24-25] Related post: Cato at Liberty.
Yet more: Remembering when the National Council of State Legislatures awarded Silver its “prestigious” and delightfully named “William M. Bulger Excellence in State Leadership Award” [Howie Carr, New York Post via Margaret Soltan]
12 Comments
would like to see a RICO suit against the law firm and its partners who profited from this scheme.
Corruption in New York (or Chicago, or LA, or New Orleans, or in Jersey)? I am shocked — shocked— to find that corruption is going on in here!
{snark on} Stop. This is another attempt to censor free speech. {snark off}
[…] There must be a better way to fund scientific inquiry, and maybe that way involves less appropriation of tax moneys and more voluntary action. [adapted in part from a post at Overlawyered] […]
[…] lucrative asbestos cases to Silver’s firm of Weitz & Luxenberg. The doctor is described as a “well-known expert” who “conducts mesothelioma research” and who had created a center at …by or before 2002 related to that subject. The doctor, not named in the complaint, “has entered […]
I believe I speak for most New Yorkers when I admit that it’s not the corruption that bothers me. It’s the sanctimony.
Bob
I hope that Senator Gillibrand gets swept up in this. Her demand for the H.R.847 – James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 disgusted me.
If we were to start putting U.S. cities in order of “perceived to be most corrupt”, would New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL; and Detroit, MI top the list, or are there other cities in the running??? Assuming those cities do share that distinction, would lists from past decades look similarly? If so, are voters to blame, or???
You’d prob wanna incl New Orleans, esp for the NOPD.
Thank you for the reminder, yes New Orleans deserves a spot in the top 10. Sacramento, too. I still wonder if there is a common thread?
[…] firms trade cash to doctors for mesothelioma referrals? [Alison Frankel/Reuters, Science magazine, earlier] And from the New York […]
[…] on the Silver arrest here and here. More: “Tarnished Silver: Speaker’s arrest upends most everything in […]