Sheldon Silver, the former Democratic speaker of the New York State assembly, cheated on his wife with two different women while in office and allegedly used his position to aid both professionally, according to court documents that were unsealed on Friday morning.
Silver was forced to resign from leadership of the state legislature after he was found guilty of federal fraud charges late last year. He had held the position for more than two decades and become one of the most powerful figures in New York politics.
New documents from the trial that were released ahead of Silver's sentencing hearing next month revealed that federal prosecutors discovered affairs Silver was having with two separate women and also measures he had taken to keep the affairs secret.
Although the names of the women were redacted from the documents, it was revealed that one woman lobbied him regularly and that he had recommended the other woman for a job with the state government.
The New York Times reported:
The women were not identified in the papers released on Friday, but one of them lobbied him "on a regular basis on behalf of clients who had business before the state," the government said in a memo to a judge.
In the case of the other woman, prosecutors said, Mr. Silver "used his official position to recommend" her for a state job, "over which he exercised a particularly high level of control."
The allegations were contained in sealed court papers that federal prosecutors in Manhattan first presented to a judge last fall in hopes of being able to use the material in Mr. Silver’s trial on federal corruption charges.
The judge, Valerie E. Caproni, did not unseal the materials at the time, but the issue arose again after the trial ended, when the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, asked to be able to use the materials at Mr. Silver’s sentencing, which is scheduled for May 3.
The woman got the job Silver recommended she receive, after Silver followed up on the request numerous times, according to the court documents.
"The government also learned that [redacted] was the only person that the defendant (or his Assembly staff) had ever recommended to [redacted] for hire and that the Speaker’s office called after making the initial recommendation of [redacted] to check in on the status of her application," the prosecution wrote. "The government further learned that [redacted] hired [redacted] in part due to the defendant’s recommendation and follow-up requests."
Phone records showed that Silver was using two cell phones, one for state business and another "burner" phone he used to contact the women, according to the New York Post. The second phone was activated within days of a cell phone being activated for one of the women. The phone was not put under Silver's name.
Silver's wife, Rosa Silver, worked as a special needs school teacher at a New York City public school before she retired.
Silver was a longtime political ally of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who once described him as "stalwart voice on the needs for New Yorkers."
The case against Silver was brought by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office is now digging into the fundraising operation of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, another Clinton ally.
Bharara sent a warning this week to a third Clinton ally, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, saying at a press conference that his executive office is "far from immune from the creeping show-me-the-money culture that has been pervading New York for some time now."