Sheldon Silver doesn’t want to die
ny pml sec 109 to hell. remember nyc otb?
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
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.
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.
in prison
Convicted former state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is begging a federal judge for “mercy” — saying he hopes he doesn’t die in prison when he is sentenced later this week.
“I worry that my wife will be destitute. I worry about her trying to visit me while continuing to be a full-time helper for her 93-year-old mother. I worry about my own age and health. I pray I will not die in prison,” Silver, 74, wrote in a letter to Manhattan federal Judge Valerie Caproni ahead of his July 27th sentencing.
“I beg for your mercy so that I can somehow go out into the world again to atone to everyone I have hurt,” he told the judge, referring to a request by his lawyer to sentence Silver to a term of public service.
Silver was once one of the most powerful men in NY — along with disgraced Senate leader Dean Skelos and Gov. Cuomo — before he was convicted of pocketing more than $4 million in kickbacks, plus $1 million in illicit profits, through two schemes, including one that directed $500,000 in state grants to a cancer doctor who was sending him lucrative patient referrals.
His first conviction, in 2015, was overturned on appeal amid questions about the validity of the jury instructions.
He has served no prison time as a result.
Despite the request for leniency, Silver continues to assert that what he did was not a crime as he appeals the verdict, according to his lawyer, Michael Feldberg.
“Mr. Silver maintains that his conduct, while far from exemplary, did not cross the line of criminality,” Feldberg wrote to the judge. “And he has a constitutional right to seek to vindicate that view on appeal.”
In a sentencing memo filed Friday, prosecutors didn’t specify how much time the Lower East Side Democrat should serve except to say that it should be longer than any NY legislator ever convicted of corruption.
The current record-holder is ex-Assemblyman William Boyland Jr., who was sentenced to 14 years in 2015.
“The evidence at trial revealed, once again, that Silver repeatedly corrupted the great power of his office for personal profit and caused incalculable damage to the public trust,” the feds said.
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