For many years we joked that Shelly Silver always won, that the man who was Assembly speaker for 21 years invariably came out on top. He could subvert democracy in the chamber while barely raising his deep voice. He could kill the city’s commuter tax, vital to funding cops and schools and other city services, with a lightning-quick vote. He could stop congestion pricing without any vote at all.
He could pass ethics laws that didn’t apply to him. He could protect his allies, sexual offenders who preyed on women who worked for the Assembly, and secretly pay off victims with public funds. And he just stayed in power.
Even after Preet Bharara and his Manhattan federal prosecutors indicted Silver in 2015 and convinced a jury to convict, and he was expelled from the Assembly and sentenced to a dozen years, Shelly beat the rap on appeal. So they tried him again and convinced a new jury to convict and he was sentenced to seven years. But Silver then appealed again and had half the charges thrown out.
So he was sentenced a third time, to six-and-a-half years. Maybe now his luck really is running out, as the full appeals bench denied a new hearing. He reports to Otisville federal prison today.
The cost was high. In the 21 years since the commuter tax was eliminated against the city’s wishes, the forgone revenue estimate totals $14.5 billion. Paying it back using Silver’s $79,223 taxpayer-funded pension would take more than 183,000 years.
