’18 crash involving senator’s wife probed
New Jersey AG’s office seizes records of incident that left a pedestrian dead
The New Jersey attorney general’s office seized records Thursday from Bergen County law enforcement agencies to review whether the investigation into a fatal 2018 car crash involving the soon-to-be wife of Sen. Bob Menendez was handled properly, two officials said.
Nadine Menendez, who was dating the senator at the time of the crash, was released by police without a summons or a sobriety test after she struck and killed Richard Koop, 49, while driving at night along a wide, two-lane boulevard in Bogota, N.J., police records show.
After a brief investigation, the police determined that Nadine Menendez, 56, was “not at fault” and that Koop, who had marijuana and alcohol in his system, had been jaywalking as he walked across the street toward his apartment. Nadine Menendez told officers Koop “jumped on my windshield.” No charges were filed.
The attorney general’s office began its inquiry a day after details of the collision were reported publicly for the first time by The New York Times and The Record of New Jersey, nearly five years after it happened. A review by the Times of police reports, dashcam footage, 911 call recordings and a video of the collision raises new questions about the rigor of an investigation that Koop’s relatives have long believed was inadequate.
Bob Menendez, a Democrat, and his wife were indicted last month alongside three New Jersey businesspeople in a bribery scheme. They have each pleaded innocent, including to an allegation that the couple received as a bribe a new Mercedes-Benz convertible to replace Nadine Menendez’s car, which was damaged in the crash.
The attorney general’s public integrity unit will review all records generated by the Bogota Police Department and the Bergen County prosecutor’s office to determine whether the investigation into the fatal crash was handled appropriately, according to the two officials, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the investigation, first reported by NBC News.
Leaders of the Bogota Police Department have not returned phone calls or responded to in-person queries about the accident for days. On Thursday, an officer, Kevin Geraghty, referred a reporter to the borough attorney, William Betesh, who said he had “no comment in this matter.”
Christopher Kelemen, the borough’s Republican mayor, and every member of Bogota’s elected council declined to comment, citing a directive from Betesh. Several members of the council said they had been unaware of the crash or the high-profile driver involved until this week — even though state records show it was the small borough’s only traffic fatality in at least a five-year period.
Elizabeth Rebein, a spokesperson for the Bergen County prosecutor’s office, said she had no information to provide.
Neither Menendez nor his wife had ever reached out to the Koop family to express their condolences. Nadine Menendez’s lawyer, David Schertler, called Koop’s death a “tragic accident” but said Menendez “was not at fault, did not violate any laws and was therefore not charged with any crimes.”
“The fact of the accident has nothing to do with the allegations in the current indictment against Ms. Menendez,” Schertler added in an email Friday. “We are confident that any ‘reopening’ of an investigation into the accident will confirm that conclusion.”
Although they did not share details of the fatal December 2018 collision, prosecutors said in the bribery indictment that Nadine Menendez had been in an “accident” that month that left her without a car. They said the senator then agreed to try to halt a state criminal investigation tied to an associate in exchange for a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible.