New York Adult Entertainment: NY Senate leader Bruno, 80, faces corruption trial
Bruno thrived in the system, grabbing the New York Senate’s Republican majority’s leadership post in a 1994 overthrow. He doggedly courted high-tech projects for New York, often in his district, 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.