Former state Senate Republican leader Joseph L. Bruno accused of collecting illiegal gratuities

In Albany, New York, Former state Republican leader Joseph L. Bruno,80, " was a top power broker. "On Monday, he faces trial on charges that could tarnish his legacy, send him to prison and serve as a de facto indictment of Albany's oft-criticized political culture." The Federal prosecutors are accusing Bruno of collecting over "$3.2 million in commissions and gifts over 13 years in return for using his state influence to benefit a dozen labor unions and three private businessmen."

Bruno is just another target "in a line of corruption cases against New York officials over the past two decades. [Some examples of how Bruno is not the first to be accused of wrongful doing:]
Assembly Speaker Mel Miller was convicted of fraud in 1991 and Sen. Guy Velella went to jail for bribery conspiracy in 2004. Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi -- reelected while under indictment -- was convicted of using state workers to chauffeur his wife in 2006. This year, former health commissioner Antonia Novello, once the U.S. surgeon general, was convicted of using state workers to help her with shopping and other personal business...Bruno, who grabbed the New York Senate Republican majority's leadership post in a 1994 overthrow, doggedly courted high-tech projects for New York, often in his district. But in many ways, he was an old-time pol, 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... Bruno resigned in the summer of 2008, only months after Democratic Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer -- the political nemesis Bruno..., fell from power in a prostitution scandal. The three-year federal investigation of Bruno led to charges a few months after that."

After the preliminary hearing, Bruno "[has] a lot of confidence... and that a jury will decide our innocence."