Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – Sheldon Silver has been convicted of corruption and sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

Silver was sentenced to a Federal Prison Medical Facility in Middlesex County. His former Chief of Staff Judy Rapfogel reported that Silver passed away.

Silver started serving his sentence on August 2020, despite having been in poor health. The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. appealed his 2018 conviction which was upheld in January 2020. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Silver was convicted on corruption charges in January 2013. The appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Silver, a Democrat was charged with accepting nearly $4 million in illegal payments for his official participation in two different schemes.

Silver was accused of arranging for grants from the state to be given to a researcher in cancer who referred patients with mesothelioma to his law office. He also supported rent regulation interests in two real estate developers, which sent work to another law company.

Silver, who represented Manhattan’s Lower East Side and served as Assembly speaker between 1994-2015. Silver, along with Andrew Cuomo (the former Democratic Governor) and Dean Skelos (the Republican former Senate Majority Leader), was among the three men who had effective power to influence New York’s legislative priorities.

According to sources, former President Donald Trump considered granting clemency in the United States to Silver.

Silver was initially convicted and sentenced in 2015. This conviction was overturned by the 2nd Circuit in 2017. They cited a Supreme Court ruling in 2016 that narrowed corruption by public officers in an instance involving Bob McDonnell (a Republican former governor of Virginia).