Federal appeals court vacates Bruno conviction, opens door to new trial

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

A federal appeals court this morning vacated the 2009 corruption convictions of former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, but said he should face a new trial.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City found that there is sufficient evidence of quid pro quo payments from businessman Jared Abruzzesse to Bruno that a new jury should consider the matter.

“The government’s evidence would permit a reasonable jury to find that Bruno performed virtually non-existent consulting work for substantial payments,” the three-judge panel wrote.

The same could be said for Abruzzesse’s payment of $40,000 to Bruno for a young racehorse prosecutors said was virtually worthless, the court said.

“We hold that double jeopardy does not bar retrial because of insufficiency of the evidence on the counts of conviction,” the court concluded.

The judges had heard arguments in the case in June.

Bruno, now 82, Senate majority leader from 1994 to 2008, was convicted on two counts of honest services fraud in federal court in Albany in December 2009.

Later, the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically limited the scope of the honest services law, and both sides agreed the conviction would be vacated. But Bruno’s lawyers on appeal had argued that the evidence was insufficent for conviction under the re-defined law, which limits honest services prosecutions to cases of bribery and kickback.