HE BLAMES HIS WIFE!
Sen. Bob’s shocking gold-bar defense
Me? Take my wife — please. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez didn’t know anything about the gold bars hidden inside his home, his lawyer insisted in court Wednesday — blaming the pol’s “dazzling, tall” wife for stashing the trove away without his knowledge.
The veteran Democrat’s lawyer told jurors in Manhattan federal court that Nadine Menenedez “sidelined” her hubby — who prosecutors allege took the gold bars, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a Mercedes convertible, in exchange for wielding his influence to benefit three Garden State businessmen and the governments of Qatar and Egypt.
“Where were the gold bars found? [The] gold bars were found in a locked closet. It is Nadine’s closet,” Menendez attorney Avi Weitzman said during opening statements, pulling up a photo of the closet, which he said was “filled with [Nadine’s] clothes.”
“The senator did not know the gold bars were there,” Weitzman told jurors during the remarks, delivered loudly at a near-shout.
“[Nadine] kept Bob sidelined. Nadine had these relationships long before she met Bob,” he added.
‘Corrupt scheme’
The feds found 13 gold bars worth over $150,000 and nearly $500,000 in cash when they raided the couple’s Englewood Cliffs, NJ home in June 2022 — all “fruits” of a corrupt scheme that began in 2018, when Robert and Nadine were just starting to date, prosecutors claimed.
“This case is about a public official who put greed first. Who put his power up for sale,” Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Lara Pomerantz said in her opening remarks, as Menendez, 70, sat at the defense table in a gray suit, pink tie and with a Senate pin on his lapel, looking at the jurors with a poker face while resting his chin on his hands.
“This was not politics as usual. This was politics for profit.”
Menendez could be bought with gold bars, the prosecutor said.
“He was powerful. He was also corrupt. And what was his price? Gold bars,” Pomerantz said as Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams listened from the second row of the gallery.
“The scheme filled his pockets, it filled his wife’s pockets, and it fed their greed,” Pomerantz added. “Menendez abused his positions to feed his own greed and to keep his wife happy.”
The prosecutor noted that Menendez was cautious to never discuss the alleged bribery scheme in writing with his wife — and purposefully used her as an intermediary.
“He was careful not to send too many texts,” Pomerantz told the jury. “He used Nadine as his go-between to deliver messages to and from the people paying bribes.”
But Weitzman called prosecutors’ allegations “dead wrong” and said Menendez was doing “his job” by reaching out to constituents and doing “diplomacy.”
At one point, Weitzman showed a slide with a “Where’s Waldo” cartoon that had the title changed to “Where’s Bob” — drawing laughs from jurors and even prosecutors.
“In this case we need to figure out Where’s Bob? I’ll tell you where — he was doing his job in DC,” Weitzman said.
The attorney described Nadine — who also faces charges in the case but is not set to go to trial until July — as a “beautiful, tall, international woman” of Lebanese descent whose family collected gold.
He claimed much of the gold found by the feds had been left to Nadine by her family, telling jurors, “It’s cultural. They like to give gold and other precious metals as gifts,” including for christenings and baby namings.
Nadine was not in court. Her lawyer, David Schertler, declined to comment.