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Sheldon Silver Got One Of The Longest Prison Sentences For A Politician. Here Are The Others.


The former speaker of New York’s General Assembly just got one of the longest prison sentences ever for an Empire State politician — and, by extension, a politician period.

Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, was sentenced to 12 years in prison Tuesday on charges of money laundering, fraud and graft in a case that came to symbolize New York state’s lengthy history of corruption. (He’s obviously not the first New York politician to go to prison. The Fix’s Philip Bump calculated that just since 2000, 23 members of the New York state Senate and Assembly have been arrested and/or sentenced to prison, for a total of 88 years sentenced behind bars.)

Silver’s sentencing is up there when it comes to the longest prison sentences handed out to a politician in recorded history. We could find eight other politicians whose sentences were longer than Silver’s. The list below is not exhaustive. Did we miss any? The comments section awaits.

28 years: Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence after he was convicted in 2013 for a dizzying array of corruption-related crimes, including racketeering, extortion and bribery. Prosecutors said he robbed Detroit of millions when it was at its most desperate In 2015 he tried — and failed– to get the conviction overturned. At the time of his sentencing, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said it was “equal to the longest sentence” for corruption ever handed down for an elected official.

Here’s the other longest sentence. Mark Ciavarella (D) was one of two northeastern Pennsylvania county judges convicted of taking millions from a juvenile detention center to put children in their center, even for petty crimes like stealing a CD from Walmart. The scandal broke open in 2009 and was dubbed “Kids for Cash” and there’s a documentary about it.

Ciavarella originally agreed to a prison sentence of seven years, but according to Scranton, Pennsylvania’s ABC affiliate, WNEP, he then did a TV interview where he denied all of it. “I would never do anything to hurt a child,” he said. The day afterward, a federal judge rejected Ciavarella’s guilty plea, saying he didn’t sound guilty at all. Ciavarella went to trial and ended up with 28 years in prison.

19 years: Rita Crundwell had been a small-town official in Dixon, Illinois, for 29 years when in 2012, prosecutors accused her of what they said was the largest municipal fraud in American history. They said she stole some $53.7 million from the city to support her championship horse-breeding habit. She got 19 and a half years in prison for the scheme, and as of 2015, according to the Los Angeles Times, federal officials are still auctioning off the horse-breeding empire she built up — including very valuable frozen horse semen — with taxpayer money.

17 years: The other Pennsylvania county judge in the Kids for Cash case, Michael Conahan (D), got 17 and a half years.

15 years: In 2009, former Birmingham mayor Larry Langford (D) had to answer for crimes past when a federal jury convicted him of 60 counts of fraud, money laundering and bribery when he was head of the Jefferson County Commission. He was accused of accepting cash and high-end jewelry and clothes from an investment banker to steer public business the banker’s way. In 2010, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

14 years: The former Democratic governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is one of the highest-ranking politicians on this list. In 2011, he was sentenced to 14 years on corruption-related charges including trying to sell President Obama’s open Senate seat for cash or political favors.

Back in New York, William Boyland, a former Democratic assemblyman from a political Brooklyn family, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2015 for asking for bribes from undercover agents — days after being acquitted of separate bribery charges — and for filing fake expenses that cost taxpayers an extra $71,000.

13 years: Former congressman William Jefferson is the only member of Congress to make this list. The Louisiana Democrat was sentenced to 13 years in 2009 for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes — you might recall prosecutors claiming officials found $90,000 of bribe money stuffed in his freezer. Jefferson engaged in “the most extensive and pervasive pattern of corruption in the history of Congress,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark D. Lytle said at the time.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Amber Phillips



6 Responses

  1. Not only did he make a career of hanging out with known criminals (“tarbout ra’ah”), but he made point of becoming their leader.

  2. I see a common denominator here

    Other than Rita Crundwell who was not an elected official (she was appointed) so her party offiliation makes no difference

    all the others seem to be Democrats

  3. When looking at this list, it’s easy to notice that it’s all Democrats on this list. Yes, there have been Republicans convicted of crimes, but when will we notice the severity of the crimes the Democrats commit vs. what the Republicans commit?
    We right now have a Democrat running for president who belongs behind bars. When will we wake up and get rid of all these corrupt Democratic politicians?

  4. Hashem should give his dear family the strength and courage to live through this nightmare. At his age the sentence is way over the top and he is essentially being used to send a warning signal to other politicians to remain sqeeky clean. May he live out his years to be mesaken whatever ever he has to and spend his twilight years with his family in health and serenity. Some more yiddisher compassion in these blogs are
    welcome. We are not here to judge others.

  5. da1234,

    Republicans just get light sentences or even walk.

    Examples:

    Vice President Spiro Agnew copped a plea and did no jail time.

    Connecticut Governor John Rowland copped a plea and got 30 months. He served one year.

    Bronx State Senator Guy Velella copped a plea and got one year.

    Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher was never formally charged — he pardoned all of his co-conspirators and there was the threat that he could pardon himself.

    Pennsylvania Attorney General Ernie Preate got one year. Interestingly, the man he defeated for that office, former Congressman Ed Mezvinsky, now more famous as Chelsea Clinton’s son-in-law, is also now a convicted felon. Mezvinsky got five years.

    Pennsylvania Auditor General Robert Budd Dwyer didn’t serve any prison time because he called a press conference the day before his sentencing, made a long rambling speech for a half hour, pulled out a revolver, and shot himself to death. 🙁

    Florida Governor Rick Scott was CEO of the company that pulled off the largest Medicare fraud in history. But Scott himself walked.

    Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell got two years but is still appealing his conviction. And it looks like the Supreme Court may overturn the very idea that public officials should not profit from corruption, basically legalizing bribery. 🙁

    Indiana Secretary of State Charles White got one year house arrest after being convicted of voter fraud. Ironically, in Indiana the Secretary of State is responsible for the integrity of the elections process. (This is one of the very few actual cases of voter fraud in the US — most of the claims are partisan hype.)

    Speaker of the US House of Representatives Dennis Hastert got 15 months.

    Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm got three months.

    Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi got three years.

    California Congressman Duke Cunningham got eight years.

    Oregon Congressman Wes Cooley got one year.

    Treasurer of the United States (!) Catalina Vasquez Villalpando got four months.

    I could go on, but you get the picture.

  6. Charlie, I believe you are confusing an ex-congressman with Marc Mezvinsky, Chelsea Clinton’s HUSBAND!

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