Former NY Speaker Sheldon Silver Indicted

BREAKING NEWS: The U.S. Attorney's Office is reporting on its Twitter page that Sheldon Silver has been indicted by a federal grand jury. More details will follow.

From SDNY Twitter page:

Federal grand jury in SDNY returns indictment in U.S. v. Sheldon Silver

— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) February 19, 2015

---updated at 2:00 p.m.

The indictment, handed down on Thursday afternoon alleges that Silver "engaged in a secret and corrupt scheme to deprive the citizens of the state of his honest services as an elected legislator and Speaker of the Assembly by using the power and influence to obtain for himself millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks masked as legitimate income."

The indictment, signed by U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, also charges that Silver received more than $4 million in payments from two law firms over the last 15 years and claims that he used his official position with the State to hide his "corrupt scheme."

Specifically, the indictment says that Silver attempted “to conceal his corrupt sources of outside income from the Moreland Commission,” the anti corruption task force that was set up and later terminated by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Bharara continued to probe into the commission's findings after Cuomo shut it down.

Silver was arrested on January 22nd; but, attempted to retain his speaker position by arranging for a 5-member committee to carry out his duties while he focused on his defense. That plan received bi-partison resistance and he later stepped down as Assembly Speaker, a position he had held since 1994. Silver currently continues to serve as a New York State Assemblyman. He was first elected to the Assembly in the mid-1970's.

Silver maintains his innocence and says he's confident he'll be vindicated.