He was once the majority leader of the state Senate. Now, Malcolm Smith's fate is about to be in the hands of a 12-person jury. NY1's Courtney Gross was in the courtroom for closing arguments in White Plains and filed this report. 

Before Sheldon Silver was put in handcuffs, there was Malcolm Smith. 

Nearly two years later, Smith's fate is now nearly in the hands of a jury in White Plains.

They must decide whether Smith tried to steal the 2013 race for mayor by bribing Republican party officials to get his name on the ballot.

"Our position is very simple: the government violated the law in the manner in which they investigated this crime," says Smith's attorney, Gerald Shargel.

His attorneys made their final plea to the jury on Wednesday, arguing Smith did not commit the bribery scheme he is accused of—that it was in fact the government manufacturing a crime, entrapping the now former state senator.

"I have said from the beginning that I am going to mount an entrapment defense. The law recognizes the entrapment defense as one in which the defendant must be found not guilty if they find he is a victim of entrapment," Shargel says.

The case includes hours of undercover video, including a clip recorded secretly by an FBI agent who was posing as an out of state real estate developer, willing to hand out cash for favors. 

The recordings capture this former GOP leader from Queens, Vincent Tabone, pocketing cash in a dark parked car. 

In them, Vincent Tabone talks about $15,000 in cash.

Tabone is on trial alongside Smith. His attorneys argue that payment was for legitimate work. 

"I think they have been able to prove that politics is not a clean business. I think they have been able to prove that there is a lot of deals and trades that get done there. They have shown some people like other city councilman who have done wrong things. But what they haven't shown is my client is guilty of a crime," says Tabone's attorney Samuel Braverman.

This trial has been going on for about a month and the jury is expected to get the case and begin deliberating on Thursday.