Sen. Bob Menendez’s trial begins Monday
Bars of gold, stacks of cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and foreign intelligence officials could all make cameo appearances as Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., goes on trial Monday — for the second time in a decade — on federal charges that he used his position and influence to benefit a trio of businessmen who were plying him with luxury gifts.
Mr. Menendez’s previous corruption case featured similar bribery allegations but ended in 2017 with a deadlocked jury in New Jersey. This time, experts say the once-powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee faces a tougher task: convincing jurors in Manhattan federal court that he legally obtained the ingots, cash, convertible and other items seized from his home in 2022.
Federal prosecutors allege that Mr. Menendez and his wife were being bribed with those gifts by New Jersey businessmen who sought the lawmaker’s help paving the way for lucrative deals they had lined up with the governments of Egypt and Qatar. A 66-page indictment says Mr. Menendez tried to pressure law enforcement officials in New Jersey to drop criminal investigations into three people connected to him.
The Justice Department says Mr. Menendez ultimately became a foreign agent for Egypt, secretly maneuvering to send it U.S. military aid despite resistance in Congress because of that country’s alleged human rights violations. He faces 16 felony counts — including bribery, extortion, fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent — and could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted on all charges.
In the indictment, a team of prosecutors under U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York described how one of Mr. Menendez’s codefendants, Wael “Will” Hana, was granted a monopoly by the Egyptian government as the sole U.S. business authorized to certify halal meat exports to Egypt. Hana funneled proceeds from that business to Mr. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, who set up a shell company to receive payments from a low-show or no-show job, prosecutors allege.
Mr. Menendez allegedly provided sensitive, nonpublic information to Egyptian officials in exchange, divulging the number of people stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and their nationalities. Prosecutors say Mr. Menendez also ghostwrote a letter on behalf of Egypt to other U.S. senators, asking them to release a hold on $300 million in aid to that country.
“Tell Will I am going to sign off this sale to Egypt today,” Mr. Menendez wrote in a 2018 text message to then-girlfriend Nadine that was quoted in the indictment, a reference to a $99 million sale of tank ammunition pending before the Senate. “NOTE: These tank rounds are for tanks they have had for many years. They are using these in the Sinai for the counter-terrorism campaign.”
Daniel Richman, an expert on federal bribery law at Columbia Law School, sees a clear distinction in the two corruption cases. “What the government really has going for it in this case, unlike the prior one, is the picture of a powerful senator renting his office to a foreign power,” he said.
Defense attorneys, former prosecutors and law professors point to other significant differences.
The bribes Mr. Menendez was accused of taking at his 2017 trial involved more than $700,000 donated to campaign committees supporting his 2012 reelection bid, as well as lavish accommodations on a trip to Paris, undisclosed flights on a private jet and stays at a villa in the Dominican Republic owned by his friend and codefendant at the time, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen.
None of that became Mr. Menendez’s personal property, the legal experts note, unlike the items seized from his Englewood Cliffs, N.J., residence. The indictment says Hana also paid thousands of dollars toward the home’s mortgage and mentions several other gifts Mr. Menendez and his wife received from the businessmen, including a recliner chair, an elliptical exercise machine and an air purifier.
“That tangible evidence — all those luxury goods, gold bars, wads of cash — will no doubt speak volumes in the prosecution’s case,” said Stuart Green, a Rutgers Law School professor.
Mr. Menendez and Mr. Melgen presented a unified defense seven years ago, describing a longtime friendship and frequent travels together. This time, one of the individuals who allegedly bribed Mr. Menendez has already pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Jose Uribe could take the stand and recount handing Nadine Menendez $15,000 in cash at a parking lot the day before she made a $15,000 down payment on the Mercedes-Benz convertible, as the indictment alleges.
Nadine Menendez needed wheels because she had totaled an earlier MercedesBenz in a crash that killed a pedestrian in Bogota, N.J., as reported by NorthJersey. com. She was not charged in the man’s death.
Defense attorneys suggested in a legal filing that Mr. Menendez may cast some blame on his wife, who was indicted alongside him but is scheduled to be tried separately later this year. A court filing unsealed last month says the attorneys may argue that his wife withheld information from him “or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place.”
“I am innocent, and will prove so,” the 70-year-old senator told constituents in a video message in March, when he announced he would not seek the Democratic nomination to run for a fourth term this November.
But Gov. Phil Murphy, Sen. Cory Booker and a raft of other high-ranking New Jersey Democrats have called on Mr. Menendez to resign. A poll released in March by Monmouth University found that 63% of respondents in the state said he should leave office, compared with 28% who were surveyed after his 2015 indictment.
Twelve senators in U.S. history have been indicted while in office. Six have been convicted. Two of those convictions were later overturned by courts. Mr. Menendez is the only senator to be indicted in two unrelated criminal investigations.
“Anytime an individual is indicted two times in a row for, let’s call it public corruption, the odds are not in his favor,” said Chris Adams, a defense attorney at the New Jersey law firm Greenbaum Rowe, which was part of Mr. Menendez’s 2017 legal team. “My view as a defense attorney is that this is a much stronger case for the government.”