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Former Assembly speaker won't remain free on bail

Silver, who was convicted in May on federal corruption charges, had asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction.

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But on Monday, Judge Valerie Caproni of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled that Silver’s appeal lacked merit, writing that “the true purpose of Silver’s appeal is simply to postpone his day of reckoning.”

Silver, 74, was sentenced in July to seven years in prison; he must surrender to authorities Oct. 5.

Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, had served for more than two decades as speaker of the Assembly and exercised vast influence over the state’s political decision-making. But in 2015, he was convicted in a trial that came to symbolize a culture of corruption, secrecy and influence-peddling in Albany, New York's capital.

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Prosecutors showed that he had obtained nearly $4 million in illicit payments in exchange for taking official actions on behalf of a Columbia University cancer researcher and two real estate developers.

In one scheme, Silver arranged for the state health department to award $500,000 in grants to the researcher, Dr. Robert Taub; in return, Taub referred cancer patients with potentially valuable legal claims to a law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, which gave part of its fees to Silver.

But in 2017, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned Silver’s 2015 conviction, citing a 2016 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that had overturned the corruption conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, a Republican, and narrowed the kind of official acts that could constitute corruption.

In continuing Silver’s bail at the time, Caproni said that, in light of the McDonnell decision, there was a “substantial question” whether the court’s jury instructions, which defined official action, were in error, and if so whether that error was harmless. Silver’s overturned conviction furthered his reputation as a politician whose resilience was matched only by his influence.

But Silver was retried, and convicted on May 11. In seeking to continue his bail, his lawyers argued that he “steadfastly maintained his innocence, and is, therefore, exercising his constitutional right to appeal in good faith, not for purposes of delay.”

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But in her ruling Monday, Caproni said that Silver “has not presented a close legal question, and his appeal, therefore, does not raise a substantial question likely to result in a reversal or a new trial.”

A lawyer for Silver, Meir Feder, declined to comment on the ruling but said he expected Silver to seek bail from the 2nd Circuit. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which had opposed Silver’s bail request, declined to comment.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Benjamin Weiser © 2018 The New York Times

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