Bruno Reacts to Stone's Alleged Voicemail

Following the public release of a threatening phone message left on Bernard Spitzer’s office voicemail, allegedly by political consultant Roger Stone, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) announced Wednesday that the Republican Senate Campaign Committee has asked for and received Stone’s resignation.

“We have severed our relationship with Roger Stone,” Bruno said, “That is all that is within my power.”

Stone was hired by the Senate Republicans in June, and was being paid about $20,000 a month for his services. The message for Eliot Spitzer’s 83-year-old father Bernard was left on August 6th, and said:

"This is a message for Bernard Spitzer. You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate committee on investigations on your shady campaign loans. You will be compelled by the Senate Sergeant at Arms. If you resist the subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany. And there's not a g**d**n thing your phony, psycho piece of s**t son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth, and the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all."

“We have nothing to do with that,” Bruno said of the message. "The allegations are serious enough, despicable enough, and again, in my mind, we are not going to be diverted.”

Bruno repeatedly said that the Stone controversy would only serve to distract from the “real issues,” which he says is the ongoing investigation into Governor Spitzer and his staff in regard to the so-called “Troopergate” scandal. He did not say what Stone specifically did for the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, or if he believed the charges against Stone were true.

CBS 6 News asked Senator Bruno if there was a difference between Stone’s alleged threats

against a member of Spitzer’s family, and Bruno’s repeated claims that Spitzer and his staff “tried to destroy” Bruno and his career, and made threats to his family.

"All the difference in the world,” Bruno said. “Number one, I don't know what Roger Stone did. Roger Stone, the allegations are something took place in NYC in his apartment. Roger's statement is he didn't do it.”

Stone acknowledges that the call was made from his Manhattan apartment, but has implied that someone broke in, and made the call using some sort of replication of his voice. Furthermore, Stone has made the claim that he was not at home on Monday, August 6th, and couldn’t have made the phone call. He said he was at the Broadway show Frost/Nixon. He says on his website “On the night this call was allegedly made, I was at the theater catching the play NIXON and FROST.”

However, according to a post on New York Magazine’s website, “August 6, 2007, was a Monday. And like many Broadway shows, the play, which closed this weekend, took that night off. ‘We were completely dark on Mondays,’ a rep from its management company told us.”

Already, two Senate Democrats, Minority Leader Macolm Smith and Buffalo Senator Bill Stachowski, have called for further investigation into the threatening message. Stachowski serves on the Investigations Committee, and sent a letter to Bruno asking for sworn testimony from Stone before the committee, saying “this incident is as offensive as any conduct the Committee has sought to examine to date.”

Smith released a statement that endorsed that call from Stachowski, and read, in part “If the Senate Republicans are planning to continue their inquiry into the matter regarding the Governor’s office, while two other independent investigations continue simultaneously, they must include the matter of Mr. Stone’s threatening phone call in their review.”