NEW YORK (AP) - Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.
The sentencing Monday by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni came after she insisted that the 76-year-old Democrat come to court rather than appear remotely.
In a handwritten letter to the judge, Silver had asked that he be spared a prison term that would cause him to die in prison. Prosecutors had urged that he go to prison for seven years for his bribery and extortion conviction.
A 2015 conviction was overturned on appeal but Silver was convicted again in 2018.
