Sheldon Silver, the once-indomitable leader of the New York State Assembly, whose career and reputation were undone by6 a 2015 corruption conviction, died Jan. 24. He was 77.

Mr. Silver had been incarcerated at Devens Federal Medical Center in Ayer, MA. Kristie Breshears, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, said in a statement that Mr. Silver had died at the nearby Nashoba Valley Medical Center. The cause of death was not immediately clear, but Mr. Silver had a history of cancer and chronic kidney disease, according to statements made by his lawyers in 2020.

Mr. Silver was elected to the State Assembly in 1976, and served as speaker from 1994 to 2015. His dominance crumbled early in 2015 when he was accused of accepting nearly $4 million in illicit payments in exchange for taking official actions for a cancer researcher at Columbia University and two real estate developers. Mr. Silver managed to avoid prison until 2020, when his legal maneuvers were finally exhausted, leaving him to serve a six-and-a-half-year sentence.