Politician Tries To Blame Another Guy With The Same Name After He's Busted Blocking Low Income Housing

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the three most powerful people in state government, had a rather novel excuse when the New York Times dug up evidence of him fighting attempts to build low income housing in Manhattan during the 1970's. He attempted to blame it all on another guy named Sheldon Silver.

"I was forever confused with this guy," Silver told a Times reporter.

There was indeed another Sheldon Silver, a now deceased lawyer who briefly worked for the United Jewish Council of the East Side, an organization that was involved in the push to stop the low income housing development. However, in the story published Thursday evening, the Times cited documents, including a letter written on Silver's official Assembly stationery. The paper said these records "make clear that Speaker Silver ... was in fact the person who pressed New York City officials to allow an international mall to be built on the site, instead of low-income housing."

According to the Times, after being confronted with the documents, Silver's office abandoned an attempt to get the paper to publish a correction on the story. Silver's office did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider Friday morning about whether they still had any issue with the Times story.