skelos and silver responsible for ny pml sec 109 and abrogation of rights secured by ny const art 1 sec 3
the bettors of nyc otb and the members of the church of nassau otb remind these guys that when tracks are running outside the state of ny otbs must be open
a discussion of scheduling and religious holidays in court is absurd or worse
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Sheldon Silver’s prison sentence is lighter than the 12 years to which he was first sentenced in 2016. Guidelines would recommend 21 to 27 years in prison, the judge said, but such a sentence “would be draconian.” | AP Photo
Judge sentences Silver in 'shameful end' to his public career
Little mistakes were amusing Sheldon Silver Friday.
In an elevator at the federal courthouse in Manhattan, the former Assembly speaker pressed the wrong button and an alarm rang out.
“I always do that,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “I think that’s the 'close door' button.”
In the courtroom, as he pulled out a studded leather chair from which he would hear the sentence in his second corruption trial, he seemed to jam his finger. He tried to point this out to his lawyer, smiling again, marveling at these small mistakes.
But it was the big mistakes — and Silver’s refusal to acknowledge their criminal nature — that will send the former Assembly speaker to prison for seven years, U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni told the court Friday afternoon. He will pay a $1.75 million fine in addition to forfeiting millions in ill-gotten gains.
“While I appreciate that Mr. Silver feels bad,” Caproni said, “his inability to publicly admit” the criminality of his acts “may suggest that he has not come to terms” with the fact that he is “deeply corrupt.”
Silver “wanted it both ways,” Caproni said: to be a public servant and to get rich; to be “a man of the people” while lining his own pockets. He could have had a perfectly comfortable life, she said, but chose “unmitigated greed.”
After a 2015 verdict was overturned due to a Supreme Court ruling, Silver was convicted for the second time on multiple counts of fraud and extortion and one count of engaging in illegal transactions. The corruption charges stemmed from two kickback schemes: one involving real estate firms Glenwood Management and The Witkoff Group and another that revolved around an asbestos-focused doctor and a law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg.
Silver, 74, reaped at least $3.7 million from these schemes, the judge said.
Before announcing Silver’s sentence, Caproni issued a broader denunciation of the ethical condition that seems endemic to New York government.
“Corruption cases have touched, directly or indirectly, all three of the infamous ‘men in the room,’” she said, referring to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, and Silver. “This has to stop.”
Silver’s prison sentence is lighter than the 12 years to which he was first sentenced in 2016. Guidelines would recommend 21 to 27 years in prison, the judge said, but such a sentence “would be draconian.”
The defense had requested an alternative sentencing regime that involved Silver advising members of the public on how to navigate government bureaucracy. But the judge said that such a sentence should be reserved for a defendant who acknowledged his crimes.
In a letter read to the court, Silver said he was “extremely, extremely remorseful” for the distrust in government that he had fostered, and that he feared a future of ridicule “for the stain that is upon me.”
Caproni said Silver should have no illusions about his legacy. When The New York Times and The Albany-Times Union write his obituary, she told the court, “it will lead with this shameful end to his public career.”
After the sentence was read, as he worked out the date he would report to prison, Silver appeared exactly as his lawyer said he might seem to some: “imperturbable.” There was a Jewish holiday to work around, and the group went back and forth jovially trying to reschedule.
But after the hearing concluded and Silver was approached for comment, his grim side had surfaced.
“I have nothing to say at this point,” he said faintly. “Nothing at all to say. Nothing.”‘Deeply Corrupt’ Sheldon Silver Sentenced to 7 Years
MANHATTAN (CN) – Moved by the 74-year-old’s fears of dying behind bars, a federal judge slammed former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver as “deeply corrupt” before dealing him a 7-year prison sentence – five years fewer than his original punishment.
“I personally believe that Silver knows in his heart of hearts that what he did was both venal and criminal, and that is why he is going to spend much of what is left of his golden years in jail,” U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni said over the court of a roughly hour-long sentencing hearing.
Silver’s advancing age and family support earned him some mercy from Caproni, who previously sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment in 2016 following his first conviction.
“I feel bad for his wife and his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren,” she said. “They did nothing and yet will be deprived of easy access and visits with Mr. Silver.”
Yet the twice-disgraced Democrat’s refusal to give up his three-year fight earned him a fiery monologue by a federal judge railing against seemingly intractable Empire State corruption.
“While I appreciate that Mr. Silver feels bad and I fully respect his constitutional right to persist in his position that he did not commit a crime, his inability to publicly admit that which 24 New Yorkers have now found proven beyond a reasonable doubt may suggest that Mr. Silver has not entirely come to terms with the fact that he is exactly what too many people think all politicians are, and that is deeply corrupt,” the judge added.
Silver has been on the receiving end of Caproni’s righteous indignation earlier.
In January 2015, federal prosecutors torpedoed Silver’s political career by accusing him of accepting $3 million in bribes through two law firms. The charges would become the opening shot of an anti-corruption crackdown that would jolt both branches of the New York Legislature – and ultimately, insiders at the governor’s office.
“All were convicted, meaning corruption cases have touched, directly or indirectly, all three of the infamous men in the room,” Caproni noted, adding that those same men shut down the Moreland Commission, an investigative body established to probe pay-for-play in New York.
“This has to stop,” Caproni chided. “New York State has to get its act together and do something institutionally to head off corruption.”
Convicted twice, Silver escaped his initial sentence in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court precedent weakening federal anti-bribery statutes. That case, McDonnell v. Virginia, effectively legalized paying for political access, but a second jury has now found that Silver provided more than handshakes to his benefactors.
Hoping to avoid the same sentence, Silver pleaded to Judge Caproni in a recent letter to chambers: “I pray I will not die in prison.”
Silver’s attorney Michael Feldberg said that his client comes before the court “a broken man.”
“It is the shame, the public humiliation, of having his life’s work become a scandal, fodder for ridicule,” Feldberg said. “It’s knowing that a lifetime of making decisions in what he believed to be the best interests of his constituents and the people of this state thrown in his face. It’s the disgrace. And that will never go away.”
Stone-faced and slumped, Silver echoed that sense of contrition in court.
“I spent my life believing in government and its ability to help the citizens of New York,” Silver said. “Going forward, I fear that I will continue to be ridiculed, shamed by the stain that is upon me.”
Silver’s more than two-decade reign over the New York Legislature came crashing down amid revelations that the politician made his millions sending mesothelioma patients referred to him by Columbia University physician Robert Taub to the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which specializes in asbestos cases.
The disbarred attorney also made $800,000 via two real estate schemes.
Before his prosecution, Silver’s district in downtown Manhattan made him a prominent figure after the nation’s worst terrorist attack and one of its most dangerous natural disasters.
His spectacular fall, Caproni said, cast a more brutal judgment on his service.
“I think he knows that when the time comes for his obituary, The New York Times and the Albany Times Union obituaries will lead not with what he did for the Lower East Side after 9/11 and after Superstorm Sandy and all the wonderful things that he may have achieved as speaker of the assembly, but it will lead with this shameful end to his public career,” she said.
Silver’s other contemporary leader in the Legislature, Republican ex-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, will also face an imminent reckoning. Jurors also found Skelos and his son guilty last week on all counts at their retrial.
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s former deputy Andrew Percoco and ex-ally Alain Kaloyeros have also been convicted with six other politically connected developers and executives.
Silver must report to prison by Oct. 5, after the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
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