Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa descended Wednesday afternoon on Sheldon Silver’s Manhattan apartment building — where he buzzed the crooked ex-pol and told him he should be back behind bars.
In the unusual exchange over the intercom at Silver’s Lower East Side building, the Guardian Angels founder-turned-radio host confronted the 77-year-old former Democratic speaker of the state Assembly following his release Tuesday from a federal prison upstate.
Sliwa said into the microphone: “Shelly?”
Silver: “Yeah.”
Sliwa: “This is Curtis Sliwa, Shelly. I’m just making sure — we’re supervising to make sure you’re in your apartment, Shelly.”
Silver: “I’m here, Curtis.”
Sliwa: “You’re not going to go anywhere, right, Shelly?”
Silver: “Nope.”
Sliwa: “You know you belong back in jail. You should be in Otisville.”
Silver: “Thank you. Take care. Be well.”
Silver — who was convicted in a $4 million corruption scheme — served less than nine months of a 6-1/2 year sentence before being furloughed by the US Bureau of Prisons, pending a decision to let him serve the rest of his time under home detention.
Sliwa showed up in Silver’s neighborhood with a group of supporters seeking signatures on a petition to send him back to prison.
Several locals stopped to add their names, including Betty Siegel, 52, who was walking her dog.
“I do feel it wasn’t enough time, despite the COVID and all that, and even despite his health. He could have sat a little longer,” she said.
“Even the time he was given was not nearly enough. This was just way too soon.”
Sliwa said an online version of the petition on his campaign website already had around 1,000 electronic signers.
He and his team also posted flyers on the wall inside the lobby of Silver’s building that showed the ex-pol in a suit and red tie behind bars.
“Send him back to jail,” the signs said.
An unidentified woman later took down the posters but declined to comment.
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