Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead: Silver guilty on all charges
The roadblock to MMA in NY, former speaker of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver, has been found guilty on all charges.
New York is the last state in North America where MMA remains unregulated. Standing in the way year after year is New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. As a consequence NY is denied the millions that cities reap when the UFC shows up, hundreds of fighters from first timers to Chris Weidman cannot compete in their home state, and worse. Amateur fighters are competing in unregulated events with Hep C and HIV.
Now the NY times reports that Silver has been found guilty on all charges in a corruption case.
The verdict was a quick and unceremonious end for Sheldon Silver, who, during his more than two decades as the State Assembly speaker, displayed a Teflon-like quality in deflecting questions about his outside income as well as calls for his ouster.
Mr. Silver, 71, a Manhattan Democrat, was convicted on all seven counts against him. The charges of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering stemmed from schemes by which he obtained nearly $4 million in exchange for using his position to help benefit a cancer researcher and two real estate developers.
As a result of the conviction, he must automatically forfeit the Assembly seat to which he was first elected nearly 40 years ago.
The verdict came on the jury’s third day of deliberations, after a five-week trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
After the fourth guilty pronouncement by the jury forewoman, Mr. Silver’s shoulders sagged visibly inside his baggy navy blue suit. No sentencing date was set, but he could face up to 20 years in prison on each of six of the seven counts. His lawyers indicated that they would file motions to challenge the verdict.
Asked by one reporter what he would say to constituents who had supported him over the years, he responded, Thank you. His lawyers then guided him through the crowd and into a waiting black sedan.
Mr. Bharara released an equally succinct statement after the verdict: Today, Sheldon Silver got justice, and at long last, so did the people of New York.
So did MMA. Will someone get Preet Bharara a championship belt, he earned it.