Sheldon Silver ordered back to prison days after release on furlough
MAY 6, 2021 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: MAY 6, 2021
Sheldon Silver returns home from the federal prison in Otisville after serving less than a year in prison.
Photo credit: Gabriella Bass
It’s back to the cell for Shel.
Disgraced ex-state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will be sent back to prison — just days after being allowed back home on furlough, a source said Thursday.
The Democrat from Manhattan’s Lower East Side will have to head back to lockup after the feds decided he could not serve out his sentence in home confinement.
Silver was in federal custody at a Lower Manhattan hospital and will be taken back to Otisville Correctional Facility in Orange County, New York, later Thursday, the New York Times reported, citing a source.
It wasn’t immediately clear why Silver was being treated at the hospital.
Silver was cut loose Tuesday just eight months into his more than six-year sentence.
Officials from the Bureau of Prisons had let him out on furlough while deciding if he could serve the remainder of his time in home confinement.
Rabbi Akiva Homnick, a friend of Silver’s, on Thursday said only that Silver’s family is “focusing on his health.”
His release had prompted outrage from New York GOP leaders — including by mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, who stopped by the disgraced pol’s apartment Wednesday afternoon to confront the former powerbroker and put up posters calling for him to be locked up again.
“You know you belong back in jail. You should be in Otisville,” Sliwa told Silver through his building’s intercom system.
New York GOP chairman Nick Langworthy said Tuesday that Silver’s early release was an insult to residents across the Empire State.
“The early release of Sheldon Silver is a gross miscarriage of justice and slap in the face to every New Yorker. He abused his power to personally profit to the tune of $4 million,” Langworthy said.
After his release Tuesday, the BOP declined to say exactly why he was sprung — or why he was a candidate for home release — but noted it has the power to “transfer inmates to their home on furlough for periods of time while they may continue to be considered for home confinement designation.”
The agency did not immediately respond to request for comment Thursday.
Silver surrendered to prison in August after remaining free for some five years while appealing his convictions on corruption-related charges.
An appeals court upheld Silver’s conviction on charges related to a scheme Silver executed to take bribes in exchange for helping pass legislation to benefit a pair of real estate developers.
At his sentencing last summer, Judge Valerie Caproni called Silver’s actions “corruption pure and simple” — and denied his request to postpone his prison term because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The time … has now come for Mr. Silver to pay the piper,” Caproni said before handing down his sentence.
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