Jury reaches verdict in US Senator Bob Menendez’s corruption trial
2024.07.16 12:57
By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The jury has reached a verdict in U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s criminal trial on charges of selling his power in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes including gold bars and cash, a court official said on Tuesday.
The verdict is expected to be read shortly in Manhattan federal court.
Menendez, 70, has pleaded not guilty to 16 criminal counts including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction. Federal prosecutors argued during the trial that the New Jersey Democrat sought to help Egypt secure billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance and aid the business and legal interests of three businessmen.
Defense attorneys argued that Menendez’s advocacy for businessmen in his state was normal activity for a senator, and sought to blame his wife Nadine Menendez, who prosecutors described as a go-between for bribes.
Regardless of the jury’s verdict, the case has likely ended the three-term senator’s political career. Menendez stepped down as chair of the Senate’s influential foreign relations committee upon being charged last September, but has resisted calls from fellow Democrats to resign.
He is running as an independent for re-election to his seat in November, but is considered a long shot to win.
Over nine weeks in Manhattan federal court, jurors handled the gold bars federal agents seized from the New Jersey home the senator shared with his wife. They heard testimony from insurance broker Jose Uribe, who said he bought Nadine Menendez a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz (OTC:) vehicle for her husband’s help quashing a criminal investigation into his associates. And an FBI agent told jurors she heard Nadine Menendez ask Egyptian officials during a steakhouse dinner, “What else can the love of my life do for you?”
“Menendez is time and again acting for people who are paying him,” prosecutor Daniel Richenthal told jurors last Thursday.
Menendez’s lawyers argued that for decades, the senator regularly withdrew cash from banks and stored it at his home. His older sister testified that he picked up the habit from their parents, who fled from Cuba with cash that their father had stored in a clock.
Defense lawyers noted that the gold bars were found in Nadine Menendez’s closet. They contended that the two lived largely separate lives and she kept her husband in the dark about her finances.
“The prosecutors have not come close to meeting their burden to show you that any of the gold or cash was given to Senator Menendez as a bribe,” defense lawyer Adam Fee said in his closing argument on Tuesday.
Nadine Menendez also has pleaded not guilty and is set to stand trial separately at a later date. Uribe has pleaded guilty to bribing Menendez. Two other businessmen who allegedly bribed the senator, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are standing trial alongside Uribe.
This corruption trial is the senator’s second. A bribery case against him in New Jersey ended in a mistrial in 2017.
Menendez could face decades in prison if convicted in the New York case, though any sentence would be determined by U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein at a later date based on a range of factors.
