New York – wife Senator Bob Menendez He was excused from appearing in court next week on Wednesday after his lawyer said he was in severe and chronic pain following an operation to treat cancer.
Nadine Menendez The Democrat was due to stand trial last month, but her trial was postponed until at least July after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
He was scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing in Manhattan federal court next Wednesday before his attorney, Barry Coburn, asked to have his appearance waived after his recent “invasive cancer surgery.”
Coburn wrote that he had “medical equipment implanted in his body and is in severe, chronic pain.”
In an order later in the day, Judge Sidney H. Stein said he could adjourn the hearing.
70-year-old Menendez and his 57-year-old wife he pleaded not guilty helping three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for bribes of gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a car.
Much of the evidence shown to jurors since the trial began four weeks ago has focused on Nadine Menendez’s communications with businessmen and senators through hundreds of emails, text messages and phone calls.
On Wednesday, prosecutors showed that he was aware of his interactions with different individuals within seconds or minutes of his conversations with businessmen and Menendez, such as when he was paid by one of the businessmen to finance a Mercedes-Benz in 2019.
Two of the businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are on trial with the senator, while a third businessman has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to testify at a later date in court.
The Menendez couple began dating in early 2018 and married in 2020 when the senator moved into his wife’s Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey home.
On Monday, Menendez filed for re-election as an independent. If he wins, it will be his fourth term as senator.
He insisted that everything he does on behalf of business people is part of what any elected official does on behalf of voters.
Prosecutors, however, told jurors that Menendez tried to sell his office to enrich himself, helped Hana gain a lucrative monopoly on certifying that meat exports to Egypt conformed to Islamic rules, and aided Daibes in investments linked to a member of the Qatari royal family. .