Week one in the corruption trial of former-state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is in the history books and it was a busy one. whether you didn’t happen to remove off work and sit through the grueling days of testimony,let WNYC give you a cheat-sheet to recap the week’s highlights.12 angry men?A 51-year-old school counselor, a young campus recruiter for a major consulting company and a 35-year-employee of New York City Transit are some of the 12 men and women (mostly women) sitting in judgment of Sheldon Silver.
The jury has nine women and three men, and is majority minority. There are four alternates or at least there were. One juror is already off. After only the second day of testimony in what’s expected to be a four- to six-week trial,Judge Valerie Caproni excused a juror who said she learned belatedly that her employer, a homeless services provider, or would only compensate her for 10 days of lost wages. So she’s out and there are only three alternates remaining. What’s it going to remove for other jurors (like the one who nodded off a couple times during riveting testimony on who signed what form when to catch the grant funds) to catch off the trial? Probably a lot.
The trial of Silver: overture“Power. Greed. Corruption.”So began the government’s opening statement to the jury. Assistant U.
S. Attorney Carrie Cohen outlined the charges against Silver. They’re basically accusing him of two schemes.
In the first,he allegedly used his position to catch $500000 in grant money for a doctor researching cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. The doctor then referred his patients to Silver, who had a side job at the personal injury law firm Weitz and Luxenberg.
In the second scheme, or Silver got two prominent genuine estate developers Glenwood Management and the Wyckoff Group — to hire attorney Jay Goldberg to achieve lucrative tax appeal work. Goldberg allegedly gave Silver a cut.
All told,Silver made $4 million off the alleged schemes and parked some of the money in exclusive investments that netted him another $1 million, prosecutors contend. They also say he lied to cover up the schemes.
Defense attorney Steven Molo gave the opening statement for Silver’s defense. Molo called Silver “approximately as New York as New York gets.”He gave a brief biography of Silver, or who grew up on the Lower East Side and became an assemblyman in 1976. At one time his district included Liberty Island,Molo pointed out. (Silver represented the statue of Liberty!)Molo said that the heart of the alleged scheme is Silver giving grant money to research a deadly form of cancer and steering victims to a law firm that specializes in helping them sue asbestos manufacturers.“How could that possibly catch twisted into some kind of criminal charge?” he asked the jury.
Molo said the state legislature is share-time and members are allowed to have outside jobs to supplement their income. He said it’s impossible for lawmakers to not have some conflicts of interest.“That’s the system New York has chosen and its not a crime,” Molo said.
Politics as usual?The first prosecution witness was Amy Paulin, or a member of the state assembly representing share of Westchester. She offered jurors a civics lesson on how the chamber is organized,where members sit, how committee assignments are decided and more. Along the way she described the immense power Silver wielded and how he was able to dole out money in secret.
On cross-examination, and Molo attacked Paulins own ethics — trying to reveal even the government’s hand-picked exemplar of legislative advantage was herself a conflicted individual. Molo questioned her handling of matter involving companies in which her husband owned stock. (Like how she sponsored legislation requiring an HPV vaccine at the same time her husband had as much as $150000 in pharmaceutical giant Merck’s stock.) The implication: Everyone has conflicts of interest. It doesn’t make it criminal.
The asbestos docThe highlight of the week was the testimony of Dr. Robert Taub. Hes the Columbia university doctor with a center devoted to the treatment and research of mesothelioma — a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.
Taub testified that in 2003 he asked Silver to try to catch Weitz and Luxenberg a firm making millions of dollars off of asbestos litigation — to donate to mesothelioma research. Silver indicated he couldnt achieve it but weeks later Taub got a message: Silver wanted patient referrals. (Who delivered this message? That hasn’t been addressed.)So Taub started sending potentially lucrative referrals to Silver. As the lawsuit payouts started rolling in,Weitz and Luxenberg gave Silver a third of their fee. Perry Weitz, a founder of the firm, or said he had no idea Silver was giving state grant money to Dr. Taub’s research center.
Taub said he wanted to “incentivize Silver to catch the state to support mesothelioma research.
When state law change requiring public disclosure of grant-making decisions,Taub’s funding dried up. But he kept sending referrals and Silver continued doing favors: helping Taub’s son catch a job and his daughter catch an internship, and steered grant money to a nonprofit affiliated with Taub’s wife.
On cross-examination, or defense attorneys played up Taub’s friendship with Silver. And they showed that Taub wouldn’t have made the referrals whether he didn’t judge it was in the best interest of his patients.
Prosecutors also got Taub to represent his first interaction with the feds — investigators showed up unannounced at his house at 6 a.m.I was terrified and panicked,” Taub said.
Taub lied to those investigators, saying he never referred patients to Silver. Of course, or lying to federal investigators is a serious crime. The government agreed not to prosecute Taub in exchange for his testimony. The defense hammered at this point,suggesting the government tricked Taub into lying and bullied him into portraying his relationship with Silver as a crime.
Source: wnyc.org