Albany -- Two of Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno's flights aboard state helicopters to Manhattan took him to meetings with three political activists critics have described as radical, State Police records show.
Bruno met on Sept. 29 and Dec. 15, 2004, with Cathy L. Stewart, Jackie Salit and Fred Newman, leaders of the Independence Party of New York County. They split with the third party's hierarchy in 2005.
New York County Independence Party members have also been described as cultish followers of Newman's social, psychological and political teachings, several political consultants say.
Followers of Newman, an author and psychotherapist, include one-time New Alliance party presidential candidate Lenora Fulani. Newman espouses "social therapy" treatments and has become a guru to Fulani and others. Some of Newman's critics say he is behind anti-Semitic statements made by Fulani in the past.
Bruno spokesmen have declined to discuss the Republican leader's flights and itineraries.
Sarah Lyons, a spokeswoman for Stewart, Salit and Newman, said the trio are key members of the New York County party and that Salit and Newman are strategists who produce commentaries mailed to independent voters nationwide. Salit coordinated the party's support for Michael Bloomberg's 2001 and 2005 mayoral elections. She and Newman formerly helped produce a cable TV show hosted by Fulani.
Frank MacKay, chairman of the state Independence Party, said Salit and Newman are state committee members who don't attend state party meetings. He calls the trio "leftists" and didn't know why they were meeting with Bruno.
However, Bruno and members of his GOP conference have coveted the third-party line on the ballot. The Independence party is the third-largest in the state, numbering nearly 340,000 enrolled voters as of April, more than twice as many as the Conservative party, the next largest.
Bruno met with the three Independence Party tacticians at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan on days he used a state helicopter to fly from Albany to New York City.
Sources who didn't want to be identified say Bruno has reserved suites in the hotel for years for meetings with lobbyists and others. Documents on his schedules for days he used state helicopters and State Police drivers for his travels to New York City show he was accompanied by Albany staffers and often used the Sheraton as a base.
He rents a hotel suite even though he has a staff and well-appointed quarters at his Manhattan Senate office near City Hall. Who pays for the Sheraton quarters is uncertain.
Stewart recalled that the September meeting -- which State Police records show occurred during a two-day trip involving three fundraising stops by Bruno -- focused on ways to develop the Republican Party's relations with black and Latino voters.
"It was a private strategy meeting," she said. She did not have an immediate recollection of the December meeting.
Douglas Muzzio, political science professor at Manhattan's Baruch College, said the session sounds as if it could be a political rather than policy meeting. He said Bruno's use of the state helicopters to attend fundraisers and meetings with Newman and his followers appears to be an abuse of a perk.
"Some people have characterized their operation as cultish and Newman is a psychoanalyst," he said. "Basically most people see that triumvirate and Fulani as the head of a cultish operation as well as a political operation."
Bruno's association with the Independence Party mavericks preceded his alliance with other people tied to allegedly cultish organizations who were also accused of brainwashing followers.
As reported in the Times Union last month, the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, which Bruno controls, took checks and air transportation from people tied to the Capital Region group NXIVM, which runs executive training programs. Some former associates claim it is structured as a cult under the influence of leader Keith Raniere, who calls himself "Vanguard" and says his "rational inquiry" approaches lead to successful development.
A jet controlled by two wealthy devotees of NXIVM, Sara and Clare Bronfman, was likely used by Bruno for five flights this year and in 2006, Senate and political official say. Senate Republicans listed the flights as in-kind contributions of air transportation in state election records.
