Ex-NY Senate Leader Dean Skelos, son guilty of corruption charges again

ALBANY – Former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, once one of the most politically influential officials in New York, was convicted Tuesday of using his considerable influence to secure $300,000 in low-show jobs and payment for his son.

A jury in Manhattan federal court found Skelos, 70, and his son Adam, 36, guilty of eight felonies in the high-profile retrial, including two counts of conspiracy, three counts of extortion and three counts of bribery, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Dean G. Skelos, once one of the most powerful political figures in New York State, was found guilty of bribery, extortion and conspiracy on Tuesday, marking the fourth time in five months that a major federal case targeting corruption in Albany has ended in a conviction.

The jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan deliberated for three days before finding Mr. Skelos and his son, Adam, guilty; prosecutors said the elder Mr. Skelos, the former leader of the State Senate’s Republican majority, had wielded his political clout to pressure business executives to send his son around $300,000 for a patchwork of no-show or low-show jobs.

Both Mr. Skelos and his son were convicted on those charges in 2015, but their convictions were overturned last year after the Supreme Court limited the definition of public corruption.

The new conviction constituted a fresh condemnation of the once-mighty Mr. Skelos — and by extension, of Albany’s seemingly intractable webs of money and power, especially coming as it did on the heels of another major corruption conviction in the courtroom next door, and on the heels of two other high-profile convictions this year.