Will Albany’s lame ethics laws wind up being the weapon that ensnared the once-all-powerful Sheldon Silver on corruption charges?
If so, it’ll be the ultimate irony.
Prosecutors at Silver’s federal trial on Thursday unveiled a letter that directly ties the former Assembly speaker to a fee-sharing scheme that prosecutors charge was part of the sale of his powerful office.
The irony: The letter, from a small law firm, was written only because one partner said disclosure was required under a 2011 ethics law on outside income.
Silver had been taking huge fees from the powerful and politically wired Glenwood Management Corp., allegedly in return for favorable tax abatements and regulations.
He also asked the mega-developer to hire the law firm of his childhood friend and former counsel — without disclosing that the firm was paying him a split of its fees for favorable tax reductions.
This, even though he did absolutely zero legal work, according to testimony — the same deal he had with the tort-law powerhouse Weitz & Luxenberg, which paid him millions in referral fees.
Glenwood reportedly was disturbed to learn of the arrangement — but feared “adverse consequences” if it upset Silver’s financial apple cart. And Silver didn’t publicly disclose the legal fees.
And so things went — until prosecutors discovered the secret arrangement, which was kept hidden even from Glenwood’s chief financial officer.
It’s yet another layer of Albany’s culture of corruption that’s slowly — but very surely — being peeled away at Silver’s trial.
Step by step, the prosecution is showing how a political potentate was able to game and manipulate the system to line his pockets — and to short-circuit nearly every effort that might have uncovered it.
What a surprise, though, if an ethics-reform law may actually have worked — however accidentally.