| Pretty good deal if your name is Jared Abbruzzese. Get your buddy, who just happens to be the state Senate Majority Leader, to throw a nice chunk of public money at your for profit business and get a little action for yourself. Not bad, eh?
From the New York Times:
Bruno's Friend Was Given Stock Incentive, Document Says
While Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate's majority leader, was helping to direct state assistance to an upstate technology company, the company was rewarding Mr. Bruno's friend Jared E. Abbruzzese with a stock incentive for his role in securing state aid, according to a company document.
Nice. More crony-licious goodness on the flip.... |
The document, a stock offering memo, was prepared by Evident Technologies, a private nanotechnology company in Troy, in Rensselaer County, which is part of Mr. Bruno's district and the core of his political base. Mr. Abbruzzese is a former co-chairman and director of Evident and is a major shareholder.
The document was given to investors and filed with the state attorney general's office, and federal investigators have discussed it as part of their subpoena for records from the company, according to a person briefed on the investigation. The document could be significant because it suggests that Mr. Abbruzzese stood to potentially benefit from his role in getting state aid for Evident.
Mr. Bruno has said that although Mr. Abbruzzese is a close friend, his involvement with Evident had nothing to do with his own support for it.
Good thing Bruno doesn't have any "personal ties" to Evident, eh? I wonder what my pal John McArdle has to say about all of this?
A spokesman for Mr. Bruno, John E. McArdle, said on Saturday that the senator had "no involvement with or knowledge of" the stock warrant given to Mr. Abbruzzese.
Sure, John. Whatever.
"They have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars from the State of New York, independent of what Senator Bruno did," Mr. McArdle said."
Everybody does it, right? |
