Top lawmaker says US attorney created 'media firestorm,' asks federal judge to nix indictment
Photo of Sheldon Silver from the New York State Assembly
Charged with misusing his government influence to obtain nearly $4 million in law firm payments, under the guise of legitimate legal work, a longtime New York lawmaker has come out swinging and put the U.S. Attorney in a defensive position.
Accused by Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, of creating a “media firestorm” in January, nearly a month before Silver was indicted, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on Thursday asked a federal judge overseeing the case to reject Silver’s motion to dismiss the indictment. At the very least, the filing by Bharara’s office said, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni should poll the grand jurors and review grand jury minutes to determine whether grand jurors were influenced by news media accounts, reports the New York Times (reg. req.).
Silver, who was forced to step down as the longtime Assembly’s speaker by the case, although he remains a lawmaker and a practicing attorney, says “improper extrajudicial comments” by Bharara at a Jan. 22 news conference at which the charges against Silver were announced, in a New York Law School speech the next day and in a subsequent MSNBC interview have tainted his case. The comments, Silver alleges, had the effect of convicting him “in the media” at the outset of the case, before even a single witness had been called.
However, Bharara’s office contends the U.S. attorney did nothing wrong, pointing out that he “explicitly stated that the defendant was presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty” and noted dozens of times the charges against Silver involved allegations rather than proven facts.
“The U.S. attorney’s statements violated no ethical rule, did not unfairly prejudice the defendant, and were consistent with the stated mission” of the DOJ, the filing says.
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