Closing Arguments Done, Silver's Fate Goes to the Jury

The fate of former-State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will be in the hands of the jury today. After three weeks of trial featuring 25 witnesses and tedious legal maneuvering, prosecutors and defense attorneys Monday summed up their cases for the jury.

For the prosecutors, it was an opportunity to lay out simply the case they’d painstakingly built with a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

Prosecutors said Silver sold his office. They told the jury he took official actions in exchange for kickbacks, publicly claimed to be pro-tenant while secretly working for major developers, and lied to cover it all up.

Defense Attorney Steve Molo portrayed the case as politics as usual. He said there were no victims, no explicit quid pro quo arrangement, and he said what the government calls bribery was an effort by people to build goodwill.

The jury will get its final instructions this morning and should begin deliberating right after.