The City of Troy, New York, "Where Henry Hudson Turned Around."

Friday, December 22, 2006

IN DEEP DOO-DOO

Is Uncle Joe in deep doo-doo?

As the Feds follow the cash, Joe maintains that as a "part-time legislator" he is allowed to have other concerns. He's quite correct. And one of those outside concerns is a consulting firm, run from his home. One of his clients is Jared Abruzzese. Mr. Abruzzese, according to attorney E. Stuart Jones, has paid Bruno's consulting firm hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to sources, Bruno started the "at home" business after seeing an advertisement stapled to a telephone pole, declaring "Make thousands a month while working at home." Bruno tore-off the phone number, made a call and here we are. You see, Bruno is only a part-time legislator. So, in order to make ends meet, he needed another job. It was a toss-up between an at-home consulting firm or greeter at Walmart. Bruno wisely chose the former.

What advice could Bruno give Abruzzese that was possibly worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars." Did Bruno help select wallpaper for Abruzzese's office? Or is the advice more simple, such as, "we advise you to retain us."

Why don't we know the identity of Bruno's other clients? There's no confidentiality laws preventing Joe from revealing the identity of his clients. Joes not a lawyer, priest or physician. He doesn't have to reveal the nature of the consulting work but he can't claim transparency while withholding the names of clients.

We think he's stepped in the Mirch. Some of his colleagues may feel the same way.

It will be interesting to see if the standard for New York State politicians remains "He was never convicted" or will it be lowered to "He's never been indicted."

Personally, we've always liked Joe, as an individual. For a New York State, Rensselaer County politician, he's pretty decent and he's always been kind to us. We'd hate to see him go out this way. This just looks bad.

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