Opinion

Shelly buys silence

The cleanup of Albany is “still a work in progress,” said Gov. Cuomo yesterday.

Exceedingly slow progress, we’d add.

Headlining the day’s news was the corruption indictment of state Sen. Shirley Huntley — the latest Democratic lawmaker to be charged with turning a taxpayer-funded nonprofit to personal advantage.

And kudos to the Sunday Post, which first laid out her transgressions.

But also hanging in the air was this question: Was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s lightning-fast crackdown last week on a powerful colleague charged with sexually harassing two female interns meant to divert attention from his own misuse of public money?

Silver stripped Assemblyman Vito Lopez — who is also the ethically challenged Brooklyn Democratic chairman — of a key committee chairmanship while formally censuring him on the harassment charges.

No doubt Silver hoped that would be the end of it.

But The New York Times reported over the weekend that Silver had settled another harassment claim against Lopez this year — without public announcement or even a referral to the Assembly Ethics Committee, but with a secret, taxpayer-funded cash transfer to the complainant.

Last night, in response to a FOIL request, the amount was disclosed: $103,080, paid two months ago.

There is precedent for such action.

Back in 2003, Silver’s chief counsel, Michael Boxley, plea-bargained his way out of a rape charge leveled by a 22-year-old legislative intern — after which it came to light that two years earlier, another staffer had charged Boxley with sexually assaulting her.her

The first victim subsequently sued — pocketing a $507,500 payment, plus legal fees, with all but $20,000 of the bill being borne by the taxpayers.

Clearly, some things never change.

And, just as clearly, Silver owes New Yorkers a detailed explanation of why he spent public money — in secret — to get Lopez off the hook.

His office was predictably silent yesterday.

More distressing, however, was Cuomo’s seeming lack of curiosity in the matter.

“All I know is what I’ve read in the newspapers,” said the man who so famously tracks the fall of every sparrow in the Empire State.

To his credit, Cuomo did call for Lopez’s resignation from the Assembly.

But that leaves open a far more pressing matter — Shelly Silver’s future.

Lopez, as sketchy a pol as they come, now turns out to be a serial molester.

And Silver has been an enabler — and, effectively, his paymaster.

Vito Lopez needs to go.

Shelly Silver needs to come clean.

Now.