The feds really want to make Sheldon Silver pay — and they’ve filed new court papers seeking to seize millions of dollars in legal fees and other assets the disgraced pol allegedly pocketed through a nearly $4 million bribery and kickback scheme.
In Silver’s February indictment, Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara outlined plans to seize the Manhattan assemblyman’s Albany pension, his homes on the Lower East Side and in the Catskills, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment and bank accounts if Silver is convicted.
On Tuesday, Bharara, as expected, upped the ante by seeking a court order to seize additional bank accounts and other assets, some held by third parties, as well as at least $3.7 million in payments Silver collected from two law firms.
Silver is accused of collecting more than $3 million in legal fees by steering asbestos-related cancer cases from a leading Manhattan oncologist to the Weitz & Luxenberg law firm. In exchange, Silver allegedly funneled two state research grants of $250,000 each to Dr. Robert Taub, along with other official favors.
Joel Cohen, a lawyer for Silver, said the feds’ forfeiture motion is “somewhat perfunctory” and nothing more than “an administrative act by the US attorney that just follows up on earlier seeking of assets.”



