Minutes after former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to federal extortion, mail- and wire-fraud charges, his attorneys filed an exhaustive motion to dismiss the indictment against the erstwhile Albany powerbroker.
The request to toss the indictment is based on, according to Silver’s lawyers, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s “improper extrajudicial statements.”
Silver was arrested late last month following a federal fraud and corruption probe charging one of Albany’s “Three Men in a Room” with allegedly using his official position to receive nearly $4 million in bribes and kickbacks from people and businesses in exchange for his official acts.
“From the outset, the prosecution has changed what should be a search for truth into an unrelenting media frenzy, the flames of which are fanned at every turn with actions that show a complete disregard for the rules governing a prosecutor’s conduct,” the motion states. “The effect of the U.S. Attorney’s actions is to convict in the media before even calling his first witness. Those actions have denied
Mr. Silver the impartial proceedings to which he is entitled.”
The lower Manhattan legislator’s lawyers also said that the high-profile case is not an isolated incident. They go on to paint Bharara as an over-zealous prosecutor whose “actions are in plain violation of rules, ethical standards, and Department of Justice guidelines that prohibit the prosecution from publicly opining on the defendant’s guilt;” and that those actions “have already caused irreparable harm by tainting the grand jury, which returned an indictment in the midst of the media firestorm the Government created. The Court should accordingly dismiss the indictment to vindicate the defendant’s right to an impartial grand jury and to deter future violations by the Government. At a minimum, the Court should poll the grand jury and order disclosure of the grand jury minutes to determine the impact of the improper publicity.”
Additionally, the motion described Bharara’s press conference announcing Silver’s arrest and alleged crimes as a high-profile event in which “[Bharara] made repeated, inflammatory statements about Mr. Silver’s guilt.” And the press reaction to the conference, as stated in the motion, “was swift and predictable. Across the country, newspapers reported Mr. Bharara’s remarks, quoting extensively from his inflammatory rhetoric.”
In closing, Silver’s attorneys said that Bharara should expose and prosecute cases of public corruption. “But those cases should be based on conduct that is illegal, not merely something he may not like. And even in those cases where the U.S. Attorney charges someone with conduct recognized by the law to be illegal, he must respect the presumption of innocence.”
By Michael V. Cusenza
