ALBANY — A federal grand jury here has been hearing testimony from an array of union officials as part of a continuing investigation of Joseph L. Bruno, the former State Senate majority leader, people involved in the proceedings said.þþTeamsters officials from as far as Buffalo testified as recently as last week, as did officials from a local branch of the Laborers’ International Union, those people said. All of the officials were current or former trustees of union pension funds that invested with Wright Investors’ Service, a Connecticut investment firm that once employed Mr. Bruno. þþPeople with knowledge of the investigation said other trustees had been interviewed by the grand jury earlier in the summer, indicating that the investigation has entered a new and potentially more serious phase. þþThe development underscores that the more than two-year-old federal investigation of Mr. Bruno’s business dealings has not been deterred by his retirement last month. The investigation, which has covered a wide span of Mr. Bruno’s business interests, has focused in recent months on Wright Investors’ Service, which employed Mr. Bruno for most of the 14 years he served as majority leader of the Senate and the top Republican in the Legislature. þþMr. Bruno’s lawyer, William J. Dreyer, declined to comment. þþMr. Bruno was recently hired as chief executive at CMA Consulting, an Albany-based information technology company. þþHe has denied any wrongdoing.þþ“I have never been accused of anything, and don’t ever expect to be accused of anything, because I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said in June. þþInvestigators are said to be examining whether Mr. Bruno pressured labor leaders to invest with Wright in exchange for favorable treatment in their dealings with the Legislature. Neither Wright nor Mr. Bruno has ever revealed precisely what work the majority leader did for the company. þþThey severed their relationship in December after The New York Times disclosed that several union locals that had supported Mr. Bruno and lobbied Senate Republicans had been using Wright to manage tens of millions of dollars in pension money. Some of the pension trustees personally lobbied Mr. Bruno. þþFederal investigators subsequently subpoenaed records from several of the unions. þþIn a statement on Wednesday, Wright Investors’ Service, based in Milford, Conn., said the company was never “aware of any improper or unethical activities involving former state Senator Bruno’s work on behalf of Wright or with respect to any of our clients or prospective clients.”þþThe company would not say whether any of its current or former executives had appeared before the grand jury. þþBernard T. King, a lawyer representing three trustees of a Teamsters pension fund based in Syracuse who appeared before the grand jury, said, “They just asked for certain trustees that were serving on the board for a certain time period.”þþ“I don’t think there’s anything there that’s going to turn out to be newsworthy,” he said, adding, “None of these folks had any contact with Bruno at all.”þþThe Teamsters fund appears to have invested with Wright through 2003, according to tax filings. Another Teamsters official, John Bulgaro, previously testified before the grand jury, people with knowledge of the investigation said. His lawyer, Bruce C. Bramley, had no comment. þþJames E. Long, a lawyer for Laborers’ Local 190 in Albany, one of whose officials testified before the grand jury last week, also declined to comment. Several branches of the carpenters’ union invested with Wright and were close to Mr. Bruno — contributing more than $100,000 in the last half-decade to his campaign or to Senate Republican accounts he controlled. þþIt is not clear whether anyone from the union has been called to testify before the grand jury. A person who answered the phone at Carpenters Local 370 in the Albany area said, “The trustees told me we don’t really have any comment,” before hanging up. þþAndrew T. Baxter, the first assistant United States attorney in the Northern District of New York, had no comment on the investigation. Mr. Baxter will become the acting head of the Northern District, the office overseeing the inquiry, when Glenn T. Suddaby, the current United States attorney, is sworn in as a federal judge early next month. þþMr. Bruno joined Wright as a consultant in March 1994. Nine months later he became majority leader, and in 1998 he was made a salaried Wright employee. þþLawmakers are considered part-time state employees and may have outside jobs, though state law — which would not apply in a federal inquiry — prohibits an official’s having business interests “in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his duties in the public interest.”þþThis year, Mr. Bruno told New York magazine that he had had discussions about Wright with union officials and essentially provided an entree. þþ“My pitch to them was, ‘If you like what they have to say, take it to the next level,’ ” he told the magazine. “ ‘If you don’t, say goodbye.’ ” þþAt the time, Mr. Bruno’s staff said his comments were taken out of context, while the magazine stood by the piece. þþIn late June, when Mr. Bruno announced that he was stepping down as majority leader, he said his departure was not connected to the investigation.þþ“It’s totally appropriate for authorities to take a look at what people do, especially when they’re in higher offices,” he said. “But they’ve been at this for two years, and I am confident that absolutely nothing has been done wrong and that time will reveal that. But that has absolutely no bearing on my life — none.”þþ
Source: NY Times
