This afternoon's entire testimony at the Joe Bruno trial in Albany came from one Len Fassler, a gnome-like 78-year-old who's been a friend of Bruno's for close to 40 years and started paying him several thousand dollars a month in the 1990s. He has also headed up a succession of companies with names like Sage, Interliant, Ameridata and Vytek, which may have been connected to other companies that benefited from state largess. Given all Bruno's secretive business contacts and governmental power, it was easy to take the prosecution's point that he can hardly have avoided conflicts of interest. But Fassler, while a prosecution witness, was friendly to the defense, saying Bruno earned his salary because he "helped me to become a better executive." And he said Bruno told him he'd gotten clearance from Senate ethics authorities for his private business consulting.
Under cross examination by defense lawyer Abbe Lowell, Fassler said not all the money went in one direction. The former Senate majority leader had twice invested $60,000 in Sage, and Lowell put up screen shots of the checks signed by Bruno. That did stop my eyes from glazing over, but I don't see it making jurors more sympathetic to the high-rolling defendant.
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