Dean Skelos, former Senate Majority Leader of the Republican State and his son Adam, sentenced to several years in prison

Dean Skelos, a former Republican Republican broker, was sentenced on Wednesday to a 4-year, 3-month prison sentence for corruption in a federal court in Manhattan for using his influence in the Senate to help his son Adam get paid work in New York. $ 300,000.

"You have inflicted immeasurable damage to the confidence of New Yorkers in the integrity of their government," said Judge Kimba Wood of the US District in Skelos. "… What is most important is that other politicians know that public corruption will be punished in ways that make them very uncomfortable."

A few hours later, at a separate hearing, Wood sentenced Adam Skelos to 4 years in prison for his role in the extortion plot.

Wood imposed the sentences two years after sentencing the former Senate leader to five years in prison and Adam six and a half years following convictions on the same charges, which subsequently been reversed on appeal.

The two men were convicted a second time at a new trial in July, during which Dean Skelos had changed strategy and spoke in his own name.

The former senator expressed his remorse to Wood on Wednesday and regretted that he could not help his son in trouble – "I've always tried to protect him but I've failed, "he told Wood – and asked the judge to consider his public service and letters guaranteeing acts of kindness to others, not just his crimes.

"I'm not asking for your forgiveness," he told Wood. "I'm just asking for your pity, and looking all my life."

The judge said she would have reduced Dean Skelos's initial sentence to four years because of her advanced age and her mental and emotional decline, but she added three months because she thought her testimony at the new hearing included " lies, shortcomings and misinterpretations ".

"To give false testimony must be punished," said Wood, who also fined $ 500,000.

He showed no emotion when the sentence was announced, but his wife Gail, sitting in the front row, cried intermittently during sentencing. Leaving the court, Skelos declined to comment, but she told reporters, "We're going to get out of here."

Skelos, 70, of Rockville Center, served as Senate Majority Leader until 2015, when he resigned. His longtime counterpart in the assembly, "the three men in a room" who run the state, former Democrat Sheldon Silver, has also been tried twice for corruption and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Prosecutors alleged that Skelos had lobbied three companies with legislative activities – a developer, a Roslyn insurer, and a Nassau County stormwater contractor – to give his adoptive son Adam work against treatment. favorable to Albany.

Both trials involved phone tapping in which father and son were discussing machinations to try to help one of Adam's employers, as well as testimonials about Adam's abusive behavior towards his boss and others in which he displayed the power of his father.

The government said Dean Skelos – worth $ 2 million, on a $ 100,000 retirement pension – could easily afford a $ 500,000 fine.

Prosecutors, echoing Wood, said that in order to persuade the jurors to acquit Skelos, he had unduly minimized his power in the Senate, denied being mistaken to mix official business with efforts to help Adam and blamed his associates, his legal woes.

Skelos' defense at both trials was that he behaved like any father wanting to help a child and acted out of concern for Adam, an adoptive son who had addiction problems and was settling into a career, but who had never had the corrupt intention to trade. official favors.

During the re-conviction, Skelos' lawyer asked for clemency, citing his depression and drinking problems, as well as the emotional and financial support that Skelos provides to two autistic grandchildren as a result of the failure. of Adam's marriage.

Like his father, Adam asked for clemency, claiming in court that he had made progress in dealing with substance abuse problems, had established healthy relationships with a fiance about to give birth and had dissociated the feeling of abandonment that had lasted all his life. with his biological parents.

"I'm really remorseful," he told Wood on Wednesday.

Skelos never served a sentence after their initial sentence, avoiding jail time while their appeals were pending. Silver, who appealed his second conviction, was granted a suspension from his prison surrender date while the appeal was pending.

Wood has set January 8 as the date of his release to Dean Skelos prison, postponing the decision to allow him to remain at liberty while his appeal is pending.

Democrat Senator Todd Kaminsky, Skelos' successor, said in a statement that the prison term would help restore public confidence, but that federal prosecutions could not solve Albany's corruption problems.

"Dean Skelos' conviction is only the latest evidence that the hour of reforms in the state of New York was yesterday," Kaminsky said.