By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan said on Friday he hoped that criminal charges brought against New York state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would mark a "turning point for reform" to stop rampant corruption in the state's capital.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said New Yorkers should be angry that the capital, Albany, houses "one of the most corrupt governments in the nation," with lawmakers more likely to be arrested than tossed out of office by voters.
"If ever there was a moment for real reform, I think it's now," Bharara told an overflow crowd in a speech at New York Law School in downtown Manhattan.
Silver, 70, was charged on Thursday with five criminal counts stemming from a lengthy corruption investigation, accused of pocketing $4 million over more than a decade from bribes and kickbacks through his association with two law firms.
At least nine other current or former state legislators have been criminally charged by Bharara's office since 2009.
Silver, speaker of the state Assembly since 1994, has been a leading voice in Albany for years of negotiations over state budgets and key legislation.
He is also among Albany's most powerful men, alongside Governor Andrew Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, holding an outsized sway in state government.
Bharara said that concentration of power in the "three men in the room," as the men are widely known, may be part of the problem.
He questioned whether New Yorkers had come to accept the status quo, and whether the system discouraged others from seeking public office.
"If you know you won't have power unless you're one of the lucky three, why would you waste time and be bothered to join the legislature in the first place?" he said.
Federal prosecutors launched a federal grand jury investigation of Silver in 2013.
That probe later merged with work by a New York state anticorruption panel, the Moreland Commission, which Cuomo abruptly shut down last March.
Cuomo and Skelos have not been implicated in wrongdoing.
Silver told reporters on Thursday that he was confident he would be "vindicated for these charges."
Despite some calls for Silver's resignation, many Albany Democrats on Thursday declared their support for him.