Top-shelf lawyers such as Bettina Plevan charge close to $1,000 an hour. But Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver may be getting her services free.
It’s not that Plevan is giving up her fee. It’s that you’ll be paying.
Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, Shelly can use your dollars to pay Plevan to represent him in the lawsuit filed this month by two former Vito Lopez staffers who accuse Silver of enabling their boss in sexual harassment.
Plevan brings some relevant experience here: She repped the late Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione in a sexual-harassment case in 2009.
There’s a pattern. Back when Vito was first accused of harassment, Shelly used $103,000 of public funds to cover it up in a hush-money settlement. That enabled Gropez to keep groping, so Shelly’s now being sued by the later victims. And once again, he can dip into state funds to make the problem go away.
Silver certainly isn’t starving for cash. He has a lucrative gig at a top city law firm and more than $3 million in his campaign chest, either of which he could and should be drawing on to cover his defense fees.
But his office wouldn’t answer when we asked whether he would pay his own way.