Federal authorities are investigating substantial payments made to the State Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, by a small law firm that seeks real estate tax reductions for commercial and residential properties in New York City, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have found that the law firm, Goldberg & Iryami, P.C., has paid Mr. Silver the sums over roughly a decade, but that he did not list that income on his annual financial disclosure forms, as required, the people said.
The prosecutors, from the office of the United States attorney, Preet Bharara, and the F.B.I. agents were seeking to determine precisely what Mr. Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, has been doing for the payments, the people said. Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and Mr. Bharara’s office declined to comment.
Part-time work by legislators has long been a focus of federal investigators because corrupt lawmakers have used payments for ostensible part-time jobs or consulting work to mask political payoffs. It has also been a source of concern among government watchdog groups because of the potential for conflicts of interest.
9 comments:
Well, which Albany legislators consider their job full-time, and are not getting paid from other sources? Aren't they all doing what Silver is doing?
this is going to be a slow burner.especially since it involves all the behemoth development of towering commercial buildings and residences.these people have major aversions to paying taxes.That money could have went to infrastructure and the subways that they are building on top of to handle them.
looks like the cesspool of elected hacks and the appointed toadies of the real estate board of new york will finally,well hopefully get cleansed.
What is this, the 5th time he's been investigated? I hope it finally cracks him open, but not optimistic about it.
This guy is Teflon.
Well, which Albany legislators consider their job full-time, and are not getting paid from other sources? Aren't they all doing what Silver is doing?
It's not the "other" other job that he had (in addition to Weitz & Lux), it's the fact that he didn't disclose it on the Financial Disclosure Form that every state employee has to submit every year if your state salary is over a certain amount ($90k?). The form is so generic that it's not even a problem, since you only have to select a salary range for the other jobs rather than disclose the actual salary. As we know from many other cases, the cover-up is almost always worse than the crime...
Silver is untouchable.
Bout time someone woke up and investigated him. Sadly, he'll dodge all the bullets and nothing will happen to him. When are they going to investigate Sharpton?
Can we start a new movement in which we can drop political labels and hope that BOTH Grimm and Silver end up in jail? Scumbags to the left of us...scumbags to the right of us....
Sharpton was a snitch for the feds.And a useful charlatan huckster.
he is truly untouchable because he serves a purpose.an awful purpose.
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