On the heels of his daughter and spokesman getting subpoenas, the attorneys representing former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno sent a letter to his prosecutors asking them to back off.

“In recent days, it has come to the attention that FBI agents associated with this case have engaged in tactics that are either aimed at intimidating our client and harassing his family and co-workers or are so insensitive to those impacts that it is hard to believe them to be benign,” said the July 21 letter signed by Washington attorney Abbe David Lowell. 

The letter states that the FBI has issued a number of subpoenas in recent weeks but the one to his daughter, Catherine Bruno-Hines, and the one to his spokesman, Kris Thompson, particularly irked the Bruno camp.

The letter states earlier in the investigation Bruno-Hines was pressured into testifying to the grand jury by a surprising “early morning visit from agents seeking to compel her testimony.” And that Thompson’s subpoena was delivered a day after he lambasted prosecutors in the Daily News of New York.

When asked by the newspaper if Bruno’s decision to pay for lawyers was an appropriate use of campaign money, Thompson replied it was when defending “an overzealous and out-of-control government prosecutor embarking on a political witch hunt.”

“As if to prove Mr. Thompson’s point, two FBI agents visited him the very next day, serving him with a subpoena and asking him questions for the first time in what has been a four-year investigation,” the letter reads.

Sources said that the FBI served Thompson at his place of employment, CMA Consulting, in front of his co-workers because they claim they couldn’t find him anywhere else, including his Malta home of more than a decade. Thompson worked with Bruno at the Senate and now in the private sector at CMA.

The subpoena requests any information Thompson may have, including notes and tape recordings, from an interview Bruno did with New York magazine in 2008. Bruno disputed some of what was reported and Thompson told media outlets at the time he had tape recordings to prove his boss’ words were taken out of context or were said off the record.

The letter also states that it is premature to issue subpoenas since the trial is at least four months out, with a number of pre-trial motions to be decided — including the issues related to the constitutionality of the crime Bruno stands charged, theft of honest services.

It is unclear who else received a subpoena.

In January, Bruno was indicted on charges that he used his powerful position as majority leader of the state Senate to enrich himself by $3.2 million from businesses looking to do business with the state. Formally, he stands charged with eight counts of theft of honest services.

The letter was addressed to Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer and Acting U.S. Attorney Andrew T. Baxter. Neither could be reached for comment.   

James V. Franco can be reached at 270-1277 or by e-mail at jfranco@troyrecord.com.