Ex-NY Speaker Sheldon Silver headed back to prison just 2 days after release, source says

NEW YORK — Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s home confinement lasted only two days — he’s headed back to prison, a source told the New York Daily News on Thursday.

Silver, 77, has been ordered to return to Otisville prison in Orange County, New York, after being released Tuesday on “furlough,” the source familiar with the matter said. He was awaiting official designation to home confinement. NBC New York first reported that the Bureau of Prisons had reversed itself and ordered Silver to go back behind bars.

The fallen Albany power broker had served less than a year of a 6 1/2-year sentence when he scored the big break earlier this week. Manhattan federal prosecutors said they were adamantly opposed to the decision.

Sources previously told the Daily News that Silver was in poor health. He arrived at his Lower East Side apartment earlier this week in a wheelchair.

A spokesman for the Southern District of New York declined comment. The Bureau of Prisons declined to elaborate on its decision-making, citing inmate privacy. Public records show Silver is scheduled for release in March 2026.

Congress granted the Bureau of Prisons leeway during the pandemic to spring prisoners at heightened risk of death due to coronavirus. Silver, because of his age and nonviolent corruption crimes, falls squarely into the categories of candidates for home confinement under prisons bureau policy.