Sheldon Silver's Corruption Conviction Is Partially Overturned

Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan’s Lower East Side, had been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for accepting nearly $4 million in illicit payments in return for taking official actions on behalf of a cancer researcher and two real estate developers.

Silver’s lawyer had argued that the trial raised substantial legal issues that were likely to result in a reversal of his conviction or a new trial.

In its unanimous ruling Tuesday, a three-judge appellate panel upheld Silver’s conviction in a real estate scheme and a separate money-laundering count but overturned his conviction related to his arrangement with the cancer researcher.

He will now have to be resentenced by the trial judge, Valerie E. Caproni, who could still take into account all of his conduct in fashioning a new penalty.

Silver, 75, served as speaker for more than two decades and influenced nearly every major aspect of state politics.

His conviction in May 2018 came during a retrial: He was first convicted in November 2015 of honest services fraud, money laundering and extortion in one of the two most prominent public corruption trials in New York City in years.

Just two weeks after the trial concluded, the state Senate’s majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, also was convicted of federal corruption charges. Both men forfeited their seats upon being convicted.

Silver, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, appealed, and in September 2017, his conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court in Manhattan, which cited a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision that narrowed the legal definition of corruption.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .