Sheldon Silver’s Friend Used Hebrew ‘Code’ To Warn Him About FBI

Sheldon Silver exiting a federal courthouse in Manhattan in May 2016. Image by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

By Ari Feldman May 2, 2018

A friend of Sheldon Silver said in court Tuesday that he warned the former Assembly speaker about being raided by the FBI in 2014 using a Hebrew codeword, the New York Post reported.

Dr. Robert Taub — a key government witness in a corruption retrial of Silver that began Monday — said he called Silver to tell him that the FBI had raided Taub’s home. He told the federal jury in Manhattan that he had used the phrase “bikur cholim” — a visit to a sick person.

“I mentioned it to let him know that I had been rendered ill … rendered sick by a visitation,” Taub said. “He [Silver] asked whether I had told them anything. I said I didn’t think so.”

The two have not spoken since — Silver was arrested shortly after and tried for bribery. His conviction was overturned on appeal, but now federal prosecutors are retrying him for selling access to his office for over $4 million dollars in gifts and kickbacks.

About $3 million of that came from Silver’s connection to Taub. Taub, an oncologist at Columbia University, would refer mesothelioma patients to Silver’s law firm. Taub would get a cut of the money won in lawsuits brought by the patients.

“I will keep giving cases to Shelly [Silver] because I may need him in the future — he is the most powerful man in New York state,” Taub wrote in an email in 2010.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO