U.S. Senator DN.J., who was accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes, some of which included gold bars, in exchange for official acts. Jury selection in Bob Menendez’s federal criminal trial begins Monday.
Once strong Former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee He pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him.
Federal investigators found the case, the indictment alleges $480,000 cash At his home in New Jersey, he shared with his wife, “a lot of it was stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothes and closets and safes.”
He also claims that the couple received “gold barshome mortgage payments, compensation for low or no work, luxury cars and other valuables such as jewelry and sports equipment.
The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, has also been charged, but she will be arraigned at a later date due to a medical issue.
Prosecutors with the office of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams filed charges against the couple and three businessmen who allegedly bribed the couple last September. One of those businessmen is Jose Uribe admitted his guilt agreed to cooperate with the investigation earlier this year. The other two, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, have pleaded not guilty and will be tried along with Menendez.
The indictment alleges that Menendez made favorable statements about Qatar, helping Daibes receive a multimillion-dollar investment from a company affiliated with the country. The indictment In a 2022 search of Menendez’s home, Daibes found “two one-kilogram gold bars and nine one-ounce gold bars with serial numbers indicating previous ownership,” he said.
Menendez is also alleged to have “provided sensitive information to the US government” and “took other steps that covertly assisted the Egyptian government” in exchange for bribes from Hana.
Prosecutors additionally accused the senior senator from New Jersey of allegedly obstructing federal investigations into him, his wife and Daibes, and attempting to interfere with the state indictment of an Uribe partner and a state investigation into an associate of the businessman.
Menendez, who has faced widespread calls from his Democratic colleagues to resign, said in a statement. output On the Senate floor in January, “there will be a full explanation of what the truth about these matters is at trial, a truth that proves I am absolutely innocent of the charges.”
He also maintained that the money was all his. “I withdrew thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I had held for 30 years, for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba,” he said.
Last week, court documents show Menendez is seeking testimony from a forensic psychiatrist for his defense. A psychiatrist will say Menendez “suffered from intergenerational family trauma, and this disorder caused the senator to develop a fear of scarcity and a mechanism for regularly withdrawing and storing cash in his home.”
He also seeks testimony from a forensic accountant that despite the prosecution’s claim that Menendez was living beyond his means, his “spending pattern was consistent with his legitimate compensation and income.” Prosecutors object to their testimony.
The U.S. senator’s trial is about two blocks from where former President Donald Trump was tried in state court.
The federal criminal case is the second Menendez has faced since he was elected to the Senate in 2006. He was charged in 2015 by illegally accepting favors from a Florida eye doctor, including flights on a private jet, three nights at a five-star hotel in Paris, and more than $750,000 in political contributions to him and the Democratic Party. The case ended with a mistrial In 2017, jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict and prosecutors decided not to retry him.