Sacramento Bee-

Sheldon Silver, a former New York Assembly speaker who brokered legislative deals for two decades before criminal charges abruptly ended his career, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison by a judge who said political corruption in the state must end.

The punishment, announced by U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, amounts to five fewer years in prison than she gave him after he was initially convicted in the case in 2015.

She noted that the conviction of the 74-year-old Democrat came in a year in which Joseph Percoco, a once-close aide to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and former New York State Senate leader Dean Skelos, a Republican, also were convicted at corruption trials.

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