Senate Leader Bruno, 80, Faces Corruption Trial

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN

Updated 4:14 PM EST, Sat, Oct 31, 2009

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For more than a decade, state Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno was a top power broker in New York. The backslapping former boxer had more bounce in his step than aides half his age and was gruffly unapologetic over the millions in pork projects that he grabbed for his upstate district.

     On Monday, he faces trial on charges that could tarnish his legacy, send him to prison and serve as a de facto indictment of Albany's oft-criticized political culture.

Now 80, but still with the impeccable suits, thick silver hair perfectly groomed, and a boxer's body still toned by pounding the punching bag, Bruno is taking on the fight with characteristic defiance.

Federal prosecutors accuse him of collecting $3.2 million in commissions and gifts over 13 years in return for using his state influence to benefit a dozen labor unions and three private businessmen. He has pleaded not guilty and denounced the eight-count January indictment as a politically motivated fishing expedition.

The trial is expected to last weeks.

The charges against Bruno are the latest in a line of corruption cases against New York officials over the past two decades. Assembly Speaker Mel Miller was convicted of fraud in 1991 and Sen. Guy Velella went to jail for bribery conspiracy in 2004. Comptroller Alan Hevesi -- re-elected while under indictment -- was convicted of using state workers to chauffeur his wife in 2006.

This year, former Health Commissioner Antonia Novello, a former U.S. surgeon genert, but in many ways, Bruno was an old-time pol: He was a guy who used phrases like "a man's man,'' occasionally cursed in news conferences, paused to chat with young female reporters and interns, and seethed when he felt a handshake deal was broken.

His name is carried on a sprawling minor league ballpark and a bust of him is prominently displayed at the revamped Albany International Airport.

Bruno resigned last summer only months after Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer -- the political nemesis Bruno once dismissed as "fancy, dance-y, prance-y'' -- fell from power in a prostitution scandal. The three-year federal investigation of Bruno led to charges a few months after that.

Free until trial without having to post bail, Bruno declined requests for an interview. In court papers, he acknowledged running a sideline consulting business since 1993 but said he simply got paid for work he did.

"I'm looking forward to the justice system and I have a lot of confidence in that and that a jury will decide our innocence,'' Bruno said after a preliminary hearing Monday.

The ex-boxer, who still hits the speed bag, is now chief executive of a suburban Albany consulting company that flourished with state contracts during Bruno's legislative tenure.

Prosecutors allege Bruno sold his favorable influence to union officials, who put their pension funds with the investment company and stock brokerage that paid him commissions. They charge he also helped three private businessmen with state interests, getting large payments in return.