|
 Skelos’ lawyer, Robert Gage, would not rule out calling his client
to the stand to testify in his own defense.
"With regard to Senator Skelos, we think that decision is properly
made at the close of the government's case," Gage said in federal
court in Manhattan on Monday.
If Skelos declines to testify, closing arguments would likely come
later on Tuesday. His son, Adam Skelos, who is also a defendant, has
already decided not to take the stand, according to his lawyers.
Skelos, 67, a Republican, is accused of strong-arming three
companies to pay his son more than $300,000, knowing that they could
not refuse given his ability to influence policy critical to their
operations.
 His Democratic Party counterpart in the state Assembly, former
Speaker Sheldon Silver, was convicted last week in the same federal
court of collecting millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.
Together, the Silver and Skelos prosecutions represent the high
point thus far of a broad campaign by Preet Bharara, the U.S.
Attorney in Manhattan, to root out corruption in the state capital
of Albany.
[to top of second column] |
Silver and Skelos were two-thirds of the so-called “three men in a
room,” along with the governor, who wield virtually absolute power
over the state budget and important legislation.
In both cases, defense lawyers have argued that prosecutors are
overreaching.
"The government is trying to turn a very normal father-son
relationship into a crime just because of who his father is,"
Christopher Conniff, Adam Skelos’ lawyer, said in his opening
statement last month.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Nate Raymond; Editing by Scott Malone
and Grant McCool)
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