Ex-New York state Senate leader sentenced to 4 years in prison

Former New York state Senate majority leader Dean Skelos was sentenced along with his son on Wednesday on federal corruption charges.

Dean Skelos received four years and three months in prison according to Reuters. His son, Adam, received four months in his own sentence later in the day.

Skelos and his son Adam were convicted of a scheme to pressure companies into providing Adam with consulting work, including a job with no actual requirements other than collecting a paycheck. Skelos was previously convicted in 2016, but that conviction was overturned.

{mosads}“I truly am remorseful for my actions,” the 70-year-old Republican told Judge Kimba Wood, who handed down the sentence.

Wood sentenced Skelos to a lighter punishment than he previously received in 2016, according to Reuters, while noting that the former senator had done “immeasurable damage” to New Yorkers’ trust in government.

“Through your crimes, you caused immeasurable damage to New York citizens’ confidence in the integrity of their government,” Wood said.

Skelos was convicted in a second trial earlier this year, with a lawyer for his son telling The New York Times in July that the team was “severely disappointed” by the re-conviction.

Marc Molinaro, the Republican challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for the governor’s mansion next month, has used Skelos’s conviction, along with the conviction of ex-New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D), to attack Cuomo over two top aides to the governor who were convicted of similar corruption charges.

“Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver have been convicted, while Andrew Cuomo continues to bend the rules, break the law and defraud taxpayers seemingly without consequence,” Molinaro said earlier this year, according to the Times.