Attendees say that New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has taken enough of their money already
Press release from the Manhattan Libertarian Party:
Jan. 31, 2015 – NEW YORK — The Manhattan Libertarian Party held its annual convention last Saturday, amending its bylaws to update two committee positions, and electing officers. Outside of this routine business, and before the two guest speakers, James Agresti and Andrew Bernstein, began their talks, there was a fundraiser for the legal defense of New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
“I think it’s great we’re helping him out like this,” said newly re-elected Chair Brian Waddell. “How is it possible that what he did is illegal when everyone else in Albany is doing the same thing, and they make the laws?”
The effort raised only four cents.
“The first three cents were from me, to prime the pump, and nobody would confess to putting in the fourth penny,” said Secretary/Treasurer Mark Axinn, who also serves as Chair of the Libertarian Party of New York.
“It seems that most of our members believed that Silver, in his two decades as Speaker, had already extracted more than enough tax money out of them,” said Waddell. “If anything, they wanted to contribute to a legal offense fund to go after Silver’s partners in crime, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who, along with dozens of Democrats in the Assembly, continue to defend Silver publicly.”
Sheldon Silver was arrested by the FBI on corruption charges.
If you have a bunch of politicians who systematically accept bribes from a few business and union leaders and then collude to pass legislation granting those businesses and unions special favors from government it is no longer just a few independent actions but part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
I think the difficulty there would be proving they were all part of the same “enterprise”. If Politician A independently accepts bribes from Businessman B and Union Leader C, that doesn’t mean B and C were part of an ongoing criminal enterprise with each other.
If Politician A accepts *multiple* (“at least two” of the list of underlying crimes categorized under RICO, one of which is bribery) from a single briber, and there is a pattern of them working together as a single organized entity, then maybe you get them under RICO. But it would still be a much harder case than just the straight-up bribery and official corruption charges, and pulling in all of the people who bribed the politician in question would be unlikely unless they were all also working with each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#RICO_predicate_offenses
I know I am probably just dreaming here, but what if he rats out all the other corrupt players he dealt with and they all go down under RICO? Nah, that only works with not well enough organized criminals.
Brilliant.
Always nice to see a slimeball like Silver get what’s coming to him. I wish it happened more often.
One person tried to give us a bottle-cap, but we are very particular about our fundraising.