REPORT: Disgraced Former NY Assembly Speaker Had Affair With Lobbyist Hired By Catholic Church

As you’ll see, the affair is only the tip of the scandalous iceberg.

Federal authorities yesterday unsealed records which show that disgraced former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had affairs with two women, one of whom is a former aide turned lobbyist who was hired by the Catholic Church to pressure legislators against a bill that would have extended the time period in which victims of molestation could sue their attackers. Sheldon reportedly dropped his support for the bill once his former aide/mistress began lobbying against it.

The New York Daily News reports today:

Sources identified the lobbyist as Patricia Lynch, and the state employee as former model-turned-former assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer. Lynch, 58, is a former top aide to Silver who founded her own powerhouse lobbying firm, Patricia Lynch Associates. Lynch was well-known for her close ties to Silver, and the feds’ filing says she was identified by witnesses as “an individual who as a lobbyist had special access to the defendant” and “who obtained certain clients in part because of her access to the defendant.”

The government has an incriminating tape recorded conversation between the pair, the filing says. In it, they “discuss their desire to keep the truth about relationship from reporters inquiring about extramarital relationships, and how they should handle such inquiry.” Silver also told her he was concerned word would get out because reporters had requested his “travel and campaign finance records,” the filing says. He “expressed concern that those documents as well as telephone records could reveal their relationship.” They then went on to discuss a client she was lobbying for.

More from a separate Daily News report:

State records show that Patricia Lynch & Associates was first hired by the state Catholic Conference in 2009 — the same year the Democrats briefly took control of the chamber and had considered taking up the measure. Then-Senate Codes Committee Chairman Eric Schneiderman, now the state attorney general, tried to move the bill out of committee but the vote fell short and the measure died. The Assembly last passed the bill in 2008, months before Lynch’s firm was hired by the Catholic Conference.

“Once Ms. Lynch lobbied for the Catholic Conference, Mr. Silver’s support for our bill ended, and the bill did not come out of the Assembly’s Codes Committee … which as speaker, he controlled,” [victims rights lawyer John] Aretakis wrote. He recommended to the judge that Silver be sentenced to 20 years behind bars. “Victims of sexual abuse as children want Mr. Silver to have sufficient time away to think about how he abandoned his victims…” the letter says. “Allow Mr. Silver to share in the lifetime of pain that he will now have in common with the victims of childhood sexual abuse.”

Catholic Conference Dennis Poust dismissed Aretakis as a “person who has had a long-time animus and obsession with the Catholic Church and has not always been truthful to the facts.” Poust argued that favoritism toward Lynch by Silver was not the reason the child abuse legislation has not passed the Assembly since 2008.

Silver, a Democrat, was convicted in November on seven felony counts of bribery and corruption. He faces 20 years in prison on each count.

RELATED: Last week openly gay New York Sen. Brad Hoylman co-sponsored a bill that both ends the time limit for molestation victims to sue and for the state to bring criminal charges against child predators. The bill faces an uphill battle in the GOP-majority New York Senate.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Multiple Democratic members of the New York legislature have been arrested and convicted on various charges in recent years. In 2013 former Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith was arrested by the FBI on charges that he tried to buy his way onto the New York City mayoral ballot. Also that year Sen. Pedro Espada was arrested on corruption charges that he blamed on having been molested by a man when he was a child. One month later Sen. John Sampson surrendered to the FBI on embezzlement charges. In 2012 Sen. Hiram Monserrate was convicted on campaign finance charges. Also that year Sen. Shirley Huntley was charged with funneling public money into a charity she operated. And in the case most-closely followed here on JMG, in 2011 closeted Sen. Carl Kruger pleaded guilty to charges that he and his gynecologist boyfriend had taken over $1M in bribes to fund fund an extravagant lifestyle which included a garish waterfront mansion, a luxury yacht, and a Bentley.