By Nina Mandell
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is set to make a fortune out of 9/11 victims, the New York Post reported.
Silver is an investor with Counsel Financial Services, which loaned money to lawyers representing Ground Zero workers in a lawsuit against the city and charged an 18 percent interest rate, the Post reported.
Now the lower Manhattan Democrat is cashing in on the payback.
Counsel Financial Services provides credit lines of up to $10 million to lawyers in the midst of big lawsuits, according to its web site.
The workers settled with the city for approximately $700 million, with their lawyers taking up to a quarter of that money in fees.
But when Counsel Financial Services collected, that cost was passed down to the workers instead of their lawyers, the Post reported.
Even more cash was needed to pay back the interest on the massive loans.
Silver himself, whose office described him as "a passive investor" in Counsel Financial Services, invested at least $50,000 in the venture, the Post said.
A Manhattan Federal judge will hold a hearing next week to see if the lawyers in the case overcharged their clients — including by charging them for interest paid to Counsel Financial Services.
And Silver, who represents much of lower Manhattan, could be left holding an embarrassing bag of profit.
"He's making a profit off the sick and the dead in the world's biggest tragedy," one first responder told the Post. "These guys are just capitalizing off the guys who really need help."
