Sheldon Silver’s defense team got a state budget official to admit Monday that the research money the then-Assembly speaker funneled to a cancer doctor represented a “public good,” even though prosecutors say it was part of an “illegal quid pro quo” from which Silver reaped $3 million.

Deputy Budget Director Victor Franco Jr. testified during cross-examination in Manhattan federal court that Silver doled out “dozens and dozens” of taxpayer-funded grants during his decades in power.

After Franco agreed that those “were all grants to fund public services,” Silver’s lawyers focused on the $500,000 that arranged for Columbia University oncologist Dr. Robert Taub.

“You’d agree that to fund cancer research is a public good?” lawyer Justin Shur asked.
“Yes, I would,” Franco answered.