Ex-NY Assembly Speaker Silver gets 7 years in prison

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been sentenced to seven years in prison for public corruption.
 
U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni announced the sentence Friday at a court in Manhattan.
 
Silver was once among Albany's most powerful Democrats until he was felled by a corruption scandal.
 
He was initially found guilty in 2015 of pocketing $4 million illegally by collecting fees from a cancer researcher and real estate developer.
 
His conviction and 12-year prison sentence were thrown out by an appeals court, but the 74-year-old fared no better at a second trial in May.
 
In a pre-sentence submission, Silver said he was filled with shame and feared he would die in prison.