A federal appeals court on Tuesday partially overturned the 2018 corruption conviction of Sheldon Silver, once the powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, but allowed much of the conviction to stand — likely ending his hopes of remaining out of prison. Mr. 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. Mr. 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 on Tuesday, a three-judge appellate panel upheld Mr. 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.

Source: New York Times January 21, 2020 16:52 UTC