Former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was cut loose from federal prison Tuesday, and has returned to his Lower East Side apartment complex as he awaits a pending decision about his fate, according to multiple reports.
Silver, 77, had served eight months of a 6.5 year sentence on bribery and money laundering charges at Otisville Prison in Orange County. He was furloughed from the facility on Tuesday, a source told the Associated Press, as the Bureau of Prisons considers his application to serve the remainder of his sentence from home confinement
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District told the outlet that the Manhattan prosecutor's office opposed Silver's release.
Local photographers were on hand for Silver's homecoming on Tuesday, as he arrived at his Grand Street Co-op in a wheelchair alongside his wife.
Rabbi Akiva Homnick, a friend and supporter, told the Post afterward that Silver was "thrilled and ecstatic to be out," adding that he'd spent a lot of his time in solitary confinement because he was forced to quarantine after seeing his doctor.
Silver, who served as Assembly Speaker for more than two decades, wielding vast power over the state as one of Albany's "three men in a room," was convicted twice of accepting more than $5 million in bribes in exchange for kickbacks to prominent developers and a cancer researcher. He managed to fend off both sentences through appeal, before receiving the 78 month sentence this summer.
At the time, Silver argued that the sentence would increase his likelihood of contracting coronavirus in prison, and noted his history of prostate cancer.
“Your honor, I do not want to die in prison,” Silver wrote to the judge.
Inquiries to the Bureau of Prisons and the Southern District of New York were not returned.
