Appeals court overturns 2015 corruption charges of former New York state Senate majority leader

A federal appeals court has overturned the 2015 corruption charges of former New York state Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R), 67, and his son, Adam Skelos, 33, due to the Supreme Court shrinking the scope of what constitutes as corruption last year, The New York Times reports.

According to the case laid out by prosecutors in 2015, the elder Skelos used his position to direct consulting payments to his son, ultimately amounting to roughly $300,000. Dean Skelos was sentenced to five years in prison in May 2016, and Adam was sentenced to more than six years.

Since the Skeloses' conviction, though, the Supreme Court "made it harder to prosecute public officials for corruption" when they overturned the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in June 2016, The New York Times writes. "We identify charging error in light of McDonnell v. United States, which was decided after this case was tried," determined a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. "Because we cannot conclude that the charging error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, we are obliged to vacate the convictions."

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The United States attorney's office is expected to retry the Skeloses.