NEW YORK CITY (AP) — Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been sentenced to 6 and-a-half years in prison.
The sentencing Monday by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni came after she insisted that the 76-year-old Democrat come to court rather than appear remotely.
In a handwritten letter to the judge, Silver had asked that he be spared a prison term that would cause him to die in prison.
Prosecutors had urged that he go to prison for seven years for his bribery and extortion conviction.
A 2015 conviction was overturned on appeal but Silver was convicted again in 2018.
Silver served as assembly speaker from 1994 until 2015, when he resigned after his arrest on federal corruption charges.
