Benjamin Weiser reports in The New York Times that the former speaker of the state Assembly, Sheldon Silver, was sentenced to seven years in prison July 27 on federal corruption charges. “This crime was driven by unmitigated greed,” the judge, Valerie E. Caproni of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said July 27. “The bottom line is that Silver wanted to seem to be a man of the people while he was using his public position to richly line his own pockets.” On July 17, former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, were found guilty on corruption charges. Silver was a Democrat; Skelos a Republican. Earlier this month, Gov. Cuomo’s handpicked economic advisor, Alain Kaloyeros, was found guilty of corruption charges related to the state's Buffalo Billion development initiative. In March, another former Cuomo aide, Joseph Percoco, was convicted in a separate corruption case. Albany legislators and the governor, though, have not passed any substantial ethics law, or transparency measures, in many years. Read the full story in The New York Times.