Disgraced former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is struggling with depression and a drinking problem after a rift with his son and separation from his grandsons, new court documents claim.
The Long Island Republican and his son, Adam, were convicted on corruption charges at a retrial in July, and each will face as much as 110 years in prison at their Oct. 24 sentencing — although they are expected to receive much less time due to sentencing guidelines.
A lawyer for Dean Skelos, 70, asked for leniency from a judge in new Manhattan federal court papers.
“The disintegration of Dean’s relationship with Adam and of the close-knit bonds of his family have had a negative impact on Dean both emotionally and physically,” the attorney, G. Robert Gage, said in the papers.
“His struggles with depression have deepened,” Gage wrote.
“It is an unfortunate reality that the strain of this trial has caused a rift between father and son.”
Unlike at his 2015 trial, the elder Skelos took the stand in the July retrial, and threw his son under the bus by claiming that he thought it was “improper” and was unaware that Adam accepted money for no-show jobs.
Dean admitted during the testimony that he asked companies that were lobbying before him to give his son work, but he said he didn’t do it in exchange for passing legislation favorable to those companies.
The bills that passed would have passed either way as they weren’t controversial, Dean explained to the jury.
“Adam had a lot of issues,” Dean testified of his adopted son, telling the jury that Adam struggled with substance abuse and anger management.
Now Dean himself has developed his own substance-abuse problem, his lawyer says.
“Dean has come to struggle with alcohol issues,” Gage wrote, explaining it began after the former lawmaker’s two autistic grandsons moved to Florida with Adam’s ex-wife.
Gage said Dean took the boys under his wing when Adam divorced their mother in the aftermath of the trial.
“He began to consume at least one martini and a couple of glasses of wine daily,” Gage said of Dean.
In fact, Dean’s probation officer recommended he receive alcohol treatment both in prison and after release, Gage wrote.
“Mr. Skelos is a 70-year-old man whose two special-needs grandchildren would suffer by his incarceration, and who is very favorably positioned to provide positive contributions to his community,” the court documents say.
In May 2016, Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood sentenced Dean to five years and Adam to six and a half in prison. She will hand down their sentences this time around, as well.
The father and son had their convictions overturned in 2017 after a Supreme Court narrowed the definition of corruption.