Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declined a rabbi's prayer offering yesterday during Shabbos services on the Lower East Side, but he might want to reconsider. A letter obtained by the Daily News shows how the powerful Democratic leader invoked the victims of 9/11 to steer $500,000 in state money to the Columbia cancer doctor who prosecutors say was integral to keeping Silver's $4 million gravy train running.
Under the guise of helping "residents and workers in Lower Manhattan" who were exposed to "asbestos and other materials released into the air during the attacks of September 11, 2001," Silver's 2005 letter directed the State Department of Health to steer $250,000 to a research center run by Dr. Robert Taub.
Taub's colleagues described him to the Times as a doctor who was obsessed with studying and treating mesothelioma, a rare cancer associated with asbestos exposure: “I wouldn’t necessarily say desperate, that sounds disparaging. But going to all means to do what he needs to do, to be able to treat the disease.”
The lack of research funding available for mesothelioma may have led Taub to approach Silver, who was on retainer for Weitz & Luxenberg, a firm that did a lot of mesothelioma litigation.
Prosecutors claim that Silver initially rebuffed Taub's requests for money, but then told the doctor to start referring clients to Weitz & Luxenberg; the firm got their first client in 2003, and Taub got his first payment in 2005; another followed in 2007, but Silver told Taub that the well was dry.
So, prosecutors say, Taub got his funding from another law firm, and Silver intervened again to keep new clients coming to Weitz & Luxenberg, sponsoring a 2011 resolution honoring him as a "remarkable doctor" and arranging a job interview for Taub's son at a social services organization in Brooklyn.
This may have been of particular value to Taub, the Times notes, because...
Dr. Taub had grown increasingly anxious about his son’s career path, according to acquaintances who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be associated with a criminal case. Jonathan Taub — who, according to public records, lists his parents’ Upper East Side address as his residence — had long seemed far more interested in playing bass guitar and blogging his right-leaning political views than in finding a permanent job, these acquaintances say.
Jonathan Taub currently works at the organization where Silver got him the interview, OHEL Children's Home and Family Services.
Columbia asked Taub to step down and dissolved his research group after Silver was arrested last week, and he will not be prosecuted provided he cooperates with the government against its case against Silver.
“Shelly always would bring in an occasional personal injury case,” says Perry Weitz. “When you’re a well-known lawyer in the community, people come to you when they have problems.”
Prosecutors allege that the firm received over 100 such referrals from Silver in his 11 years with Weitz & Luxenberg; those cases earn an average of $1.5 to $2 million apiece.
Read the whole criminal complaint against Silver here.
