Bruno Convicted on Two of Eight Counts

By Karen DeWitt

Albany, New York – Former State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was convicted on two counts of federal corruption Monday afternoon, and will be sentenced in March. Bruno says he will appeal.

The jury, after spending nearly seven full days deliberating, did not look at the former Senate Leader as they filed into the court to deliver their verdict. They told the judge that they had found Bruno guilty on two of the eight charges. They found him not guilty of five other charges, and a mistrial was declared for the final count because the jury could not reach agreement.

The jury agreed with prosecutors, who charged that in 2004, then- Senate Majority Leader Bruno took tens of thousands of dollars in payments from businessman Jared Abbruzzese, and did not perform any legitimate work in return. Prosecutors claimed the payments were essentially gifts, to curry political favors with the powerful Senator. Abbruzzese's companies had a number of business interests before the state, including the development of a tech firm known as AMD, which received half a million dollars in member item monies from the Seantor. The jury also found that Bruno was paid $80,000 for a race horse he sold to Abbruzzese even though, the prosecution contended, the horse was worthless. The jury agreed with prosecutors that Bruno failed to disclose a horse breeding business partnership with Abbruzzese.

The former Senator, who appeared shaken, says he's "very, very disappointed" with the verdict, and will appeal.

"In my mind and in my heart, it is not over until it's over," said Bruno. "And I think it's far from over."

As the Senator, surrounded by cameras and family members, made his way through the icy December evening toward his waiting car, two young women in a nearby crowd shouted out "We love you, Joe".

Bruno, who did not take the stand in his own defense, had maintained throughout the trial that since the New York State legislature is a part time occupation, he needed to seek outside work in his area of expertise in order to make living.

The jury rejected a number of the prosecution's contentions, including charges that Bruno improperly solicited pension fund investments from various unions while working for a brokerage, Wright's Investor Services, and that he used his Senate offices for a business meeting between state agency officials and representatives of a Tennessee telephone company that was seeking state contracts. The jury could not decide whether Bruno's $468,000 in consultant fees from a company seeking a statewide wireless telephone contract was a legitimate transaction, or not.

The conviction could spur reform of financial disclosure and other ethics laws in Albany, where critics say the rules are lax. The former Senator was never convicted or fined for any state ethics law violations. Blair Horner, with the New York Public Interest Research Group, says Albany's political culture has been convicted as well, and that it's time to make the conflict of interest disclosure laws more transparent.

"It's a political earthquake", said Horner. "It's got to shake the place up."

Coincidentally, the validity of the statute under which prosecutors brought their case, the theft of honest services law, is itself under review by the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday. At least one Supreme Court Justice, Anotin Scalia, has said the law has been applied to a "staggeringly broad swath of behavior", and that it "invites abuse by head line grabbing prosecutors".

The 80 year old Bruno, who has spent over $2 million dollars defending himself, and had hired a top Washington DC attorney, Abbe Lowell, could face jail time when he's sentenced on March 31st. The maximum penalty for the former Senator's convictions is up to 20 years in prison, but the Senator would likely get a much lesser sentence, or fines and probation.