Sheldon Silver, Disgraced NY political powerhouse, dies in prison.

Sheldon Silver died Monday January 24th in prison. He was 77. The disgraced politician died at the Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, Massachusetts, while serving out a six-and-half-year sentence at a nearby prison after he was convicted for accepting nearly $4 million in bribes while in office, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed. He was a Democratic powerhouse who ruled Albany with an iron fist until he was busted and later convicted on federal corruption charges.

His official cause of death will be determined by a medical examiner but he had a history of chronic kidney disease and cancer. Silver’s family didn’t immediately return a request for comment. 

Born in 1944 to Russian immigrants, the Manhattan native first took office in 1976 and later became the Assembly Speaker in 1994, a position of power that made him one of Albany’s “three men in a room.” Throughout four-decades in office, Silver served as Speaker under five New York governors, from Mario Cuomo to Andrew Cuomo, and earned a reputation as one of the most feared men in Albany. He was a harsh negotiator who blocked proposals so often, he earned the nickname “Dr. No.”