Many people don’t know that Anthony Bruno, who is facing three years in prison and a $250,000 fine after being indicted for federal tax fraud Friday was born here in May 1952. He spent most of his 56 years elsewhere, however, apparently conducting his affairs in a decidedly non-Oak Park manner.
Bruno has worked on projects in Forest Park, Melrose Park, Cicero and Bellwood, to name just a few. He earned some $400,000 providing PR services for a $42 million Melrose Park water project before word of a federal investigation shut it down. Closer to Oak Park, Bruno earned around $100,000 for similar work on a similar water project in Forest Park, before officials there backed off.
His current project is on the Bellwood/Melrose Park border near 25th and Grant avenues in Bellwood. Ground was recently broken for the first phase of a transportation-oriented plan to redevelop 55 acres – about 60 percent in Bellwood and 40 percent in Melrose Park
The camera-shy Bruno, pictured here on his company’s website, was disbarred in 1993 after the Illinois Supreme Court found “clear evidence of the manufacture of false documents … other misrepresentations concerning the status of his representation of clients and his repeated neglect of legal matters.”
Power players like Illinois Rep. Skip Saviano of Elmwood Park and Melrose Park Mayor Ronald Serpico have enjoy serious chunks of Bruno’s largesse – Serpico received over $14,000 in total donations, Saviano $7,000, the Cicero Good Government Group $5,300, and the Bellwood Victory Party $14,000.
He’s even donated to politicians from his birth town, giving Oak Park’s own State Sen. Don Harmon $2,500, the Democratic Party of Oak Park $550, and state Rep. Deborah Graham $2,173.