The key government witness who helped bring down Sheldon Silver is hoping the disgraced pol’s overturned conviction will help him get his own job back.
Dr. Robert Taub was fired from his cancer research gig at Columbia University after testifying that he received $500,000 in state research grants in exchange for referring sick patients to Silver’s law firm Weitz & Luxenberg.
On Thursday, the Second Circuit appeals court overturned Sheldon’s corruption conviction.
“We hope that Columbia now appreciates that Dr. Taub was discharged on a false premise and that it will offer him reinstatement to his position as a member of its faculty,” Taub’s lawyer Richard Reice told The Post Thursday.
Taub sued Columbia to get his $300,000-a-year job back but was fired again in April after an appeals court sided with the university.
The suit was dismissed altogether a month later.
Now, Reice said he’s looking at whether the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, will reconsider Taub’s case given the ruling on Silver.
In a statement, Columbia indicated that it’s not likely Taub will get his job back.
“The ruling today overturning the conviction of Sheldon Silver continues to recognize the significance of the underlying facts of the case, even as the appellate court found that the newly applicable legal standard requires this decision,” the school said.