A bribe or a favor? Quid pro quo or goodwill?
A federal prosecutor and an attorney for former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver tangled over these questions and more today during closing arguments in a corruption case that has rocked Albany.
As U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara looked on from the back of the Manhattan courtroom, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Goldstein portrayed Mr. Silver as a craven, cash-hungry pol who repeatedly deceived the public and even his friends. Everything Mr. Silver did in the two corruption schemes he is accused of undertaking was about the “money,” Mr. Goldstein said.
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