National Roundup

New York
Sheldon Silver begins prison sentence in corruption case
NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, once one of the most powerful politicians in the state, started his prison sentence Wednesday after years of fending off going behind bars.

Silver, 76, reported to a federal prison in Otisville, New York, according to a statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He was sentenced earlier this year to 6 1/2 years behind bars in a corruption case.

Silver’s lawyers declined comment on Wednesday.

The Democrat was ousted as speaker in 2015 and convicted later that year, but appeals had kept him out of prison. His conviction in federal court in Manhattan was overturned on appeal before he was convicted again in 2018.

Part of that conviction was then tossed out on another appeal, leading to yet another sentencing in July where he asked a judge not to let him die in prison. His lawyers had sought a term of home confinement, arguing that sending him to prison would worsen existing health issues or risk having him die from the coronavirus.

But District Judge Valerie Caproni said she had no option but to finally punish him for what she called “corruption, pure and simple.”

In the part of the case that survived the appeal process, Silver was convicted in a scheme that involved favors and business traded between two real estate developers and a law firm. He supported legislation in Albany that benefited the developers, who then referred certain tax business to a law firm that paid him fees.

The federal prison in Otisville is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from New York City, tucked in the lush countryside south of the Catskill Mountains.

Recent inmates there have included Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer who pleaded guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance charges and lying to Congress. Cohen is still serving his sentence, but was released to house arrest along with other prisoners to limit the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

Another Otisville inmate recently released because of the virus was Dean Skelos, the Republican who led New York’s Senate between 2011 and 2015. He, like Silver, was forced from office in a corruption scandal.

As a new inmate, Silver will be tested for COVID-19 and placed in quarantine for 14 days.

Florida
Energy firm drops bribe suit against ex-oil czar
MIAMI (AP) — A Houston energy firm has dropped a lawsuit against Venezuela’s former oil czar, who it had accused of orchestrating demands for a $10 million bribe to approve an asset sale in the South American country.

The dismissal came in a filing in Houston federal court Wednesday by Harvest Natural Resources. No reason was given for the sudden reversal but two people close to Ramirez told The Associated Press that no settlement was reached and that Harvest dropped its lawsuit unilaterally. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss judicial proceedings.
Lawyers for Harvest wouldn’t comment.

Harvest in 2018 won a default judgment against Rafael Ramirez for $472 million after the former Venezuelan official failed to contest the civil lawsuit. He later appeared in the case and vigorously fought the accusations, managing to get the default judgment dismissed.

Ramirez oversaw the OPEC nation’s oil industry for a decade as oil minister and president of its national oil company, PDVSA. But he angrily broke with fellow socialist Nicolás Maduro while serving as the Venezuelan president’s ambassador to the United Nations.

After being removed, he went into exile in Europe. This year the government-aligned Supreme Court requested his extradition from Italy, where he is believed to be living, to face corruption charges back home that Ramirez says are payback for his defiance of Maduro

Harvest had alleged  that starting in 2012, it refused a $10 million bribe demand from a Florida-based oil consultant who said he was acting in the name of Ramirez. The company had reached an agreement to sell its stake in a joint venture with PDVSA for $725 million to Indonesia’s state-owned Pertamina.

Harvest claimed that as a result of its refusal to pay, Ramirez failed to approve the sale and the deal fell through. The complaint cited press reports in which Ramirez was quoted as saying that Venezuela was still analyzing the proposed sale and that “both the buyer and seller know what they need to do in order to obtain government approval.”

In 2013, Harvest said, it found another buyer, Argentina’s Pluspetrol, but was once again blocked by a similar pay-to-play scheme, the complaint charged. Harvest said it finally managed to sell its Venezuela assets for a quarter of the original price in 2016 after Ramirez had been removed from PDVSA and was serving as ambassador to the United Nations.
Shortly after that, the U.S. company was delisted and ceased doing business.

In 2016, Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly said $11 billion went missing at PDVSA in the 2004-2014 period when Ramirez was in charge of the company. In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department accused a bank in Andorra of laundering some $2 billion stolen from PDVSA.

Separately, Ramirez was named but not charged in an indictment partially unsealed in 2018 in Houston against five former PDVSA officials. The indictment alleges two of the charged individuals told businessmen that proceeds from bribes made in exchange for quick payments and contracts would be shared with a senior Venezuelan official.

That official was identified in the unsealed portion of the indictment only as “Official B.” The unidentified Venezuelan politician is Ramirez, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

Colorado
Woman awarded damages under new ‘revenge porn’ law
DENVER (AP) — A Denver judge awarded $40,000 to a woman after a man she dated sent a sexually-explicit video of her to her estranged husband.

The woman’s attorney says it is the first trial victory under Colorado’s “revenge porn” law.

The decision on Aug. 3 in favor of Kristina Hendershott was issued under a 2019 law that allows victims to sue for damages if someone intentionally sends an explicit image or video of them without their consent, said Hendershott’s attorney, Malissa Williams.

Judge Christopher Baumann said in his ruling that he could not find any other trial verdicts under the 2019 “revenge porn” statute, Williams said.

“This certainly gets the word out that victims have civil recourse when intimate images are sent without their consent,” Williams said.

In July 2019, the man stole from Hendershott’s phone an old video of her engaging in sexual conduct with another man, Hendershott told The Denver Post.

The man, who was not identified by the Post, then sent the video to Hendershott’s estranged husband because he was jealous, she said.