Prison Experts: It's Possible Skelos and Silver Could Serve Time Together

All Americans are innocent until proven guilty.

But considering the charges against Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, and the case against former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, it's not a huge leap to consider that all three could land in federal prison in coming years.

And experts of the federal prison system tell City & State it’s very possible they could end up serving time together. 

“There is a fairly good chance they would end up at the same facility,” said Jennifer Rodgers, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia University. “There are a limited number of federal prisons in the tri-state area, and the [Bureau of Prisons] tries to honor defendants' requests to be housed near their families.”

The federal BOP controls the entire process for designating where an inmate will be sent. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, who is prosecuting both cases, would not have any input in that decision. The respective judges in any future trials could give some direction when sentencing, but at this point that seems unlikely in these cases.

On its website, the BOP claims they try to place inmates within a 500-mile radius of their home. Security concerns, population, or an individual's programming needs (like specialized medical treatment) also impact where an inmate is sent.

Family relations do not though. So it is possible that Dean Skelos and his son Adam, if convicted, could serve time at the same location.

“There is no regulation that would prevent a father and a son from serving their time in the same location,” said John B. Webster, managing director of National Prison and Sentencing Consultants. “I remember one case when a father and son team from Montana served out their term together in a federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon."

One thing that would prevent two co-defendants, like Skelos and his son, from serving time together would be if one testified against the other to get a lesser sentence. But even that is not a sure thing if the Bureau of Prisons determines the two are not a threat to each other. 

Adding to the possibility of Silver joining the Skeloses in the same prison is how close they live to each other. Downtown Manhattan, where Silver lives, is roughly 20 miles to Rockville Centre, where Skelos is from.  Another connection between all three is that they are non-violent offenders.

“Given the nature of the charges and the defendants' personal histories, all three men would be classified as non-violent offenders, and so would likely end up in minimum-security facilities,” Rodgers said. 

For the trio, the nearest federal minimum-security facilities is limited to just a handful of locations. Otisville, in Orange County, has housed many white-collar criminals in recent years. Another is Fort Dix Correctional Institution in New Jersey, where former State Sen. Carl Kruger is serving out his sentence. There is also FCI Schuylkill in Pennsylvania, where former Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson is currently serving time.  

Finally, Manhattan and Brooklyn each have a federal administrative facility that usually only serves as a temporary stop for inmates before they are sent to larger facilities away from population centers. Currently, former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. and former Assemblyman William Boyland are locked up in Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, according to the BOP’s database.

With both Silver and the Skeloses fighting the charges against them, it's speculative to suggest any of the three will ever step foot in a federal prison. For example, former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was sentenced to two years in the federal system back in 2010, but never spent a day in the BOP's care after a Supreme Court ruling vacated his conviction and he was acquitted in a retrial.