Rosa Silver
Rosa Silver is the wife of disgraced ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Her husband not only was removed from office after he was convicted on all seven counts of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering last November, recent reports say Silver cheated on his beloved wife with two women.
Sheldon Silver is an American politician from New York State, who has held the office of Speaker of the New York State Assembly since 1994. Silver represented the 65th Assembly District, identifies as an Orthodox Jew, and has lived on Manhattan’s Lower East side for his entire life. After graduating from Rabbi Jacob Joseph High School in Manhattan where he was a popular athlete, he obtained his undergraduate degree at Yeshiva University and went on to complete his Law degree from Brooklyn Law School. Following his college years, Silver spent time at a private law practice and as a law secretary for New York Civil Court Judge Francis Pecora.
Silver was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1976 and became chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means committee in 1992. He abdicated that position when he was elected as the Speaker of the Assembly on February 11, 1994. He played an integral role in reinstating the death penalty in New York in 1995, and assisted in the 1999 repeal of NYC’s commuter tax.
On January 22, 2015, Sheldon Silver was arrested on federal corruption charges. The accusations alleged that Silver received bribes and other bonuses from a small law firm specializing in lowering real estate taxes. Authorities and investigators claim that Silver did not list the payments from the law firm on his annual financial disclosures to the state. It is estimated that Silver received over $6 million in bribes and kickbacks.
Silver had been one of the most powerful men in Albany – along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Senate leader Dean Skelos, who together with Silver were sometimes called the “three men in a room.” On his ongoing downspiral, he was also disbarred last month by the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
69-year-old Mrs. Silver of Manhattan has been married to Sheldon Silver for decades. The affair revelation comes from documents, which were unsealed Friday morning. Prosecutors had wanted to introduce the evidence during Silver’s corruption trial last year. Below you can read more interesting facts about Rosa Silver:
1. Rosa Silver is a former special education teacher at Public School 199 in Brooklyn.
2. Rosa Silver is the mother of four adult children: Edward, 47, Janine Silver, 45, Michelle Trebitsch, 39, and the youngest is Esther Fried, 34.
3. Their son, Edward Lawrence Silver and his wife Allison Heather Mitgang, got married in 2000
4. One of the women Sheldon cheated on his wife, lobbied him on behalf of clients who had business before the state
5. The second woman her husband had an affair with, he used his position to recommend a state job.
6. Her son-in-law, Marcello Trebitsch was sentenced to 2 years in prison and forfeiture of $5.9 million that Trebitsch, an Orthodox rabbi and Talmud scholar, defrauded investors out of in a Ponzi scheme.
What do you think is Rosa Silver’s reaction to her husband’s affair?
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