Menendez called corrupt and accused of trading power for gold and cash in open trial – NBC Chicago

At the start of his corruption trial in New York, a federal jury alternately portrayed Bob Menendez as a corrupt U.S. senator who had betrayed his country and as an American patriot.

A prosecutor and a defense attorney delivered contrasting views of the once-powerful Democrat and New Jersey’s senior senator. At the center of the overtures by the government and the senator’s lawyer in Manhattan federal court was Nadine Menendez, a woman the Democrat began dating in early 2018 before marrying him two years later and moving into his home in Englewood Cliffs.

“She left him in the dark about what she was asking others to give her,” defense attorney Avi Weitzman said of Nadine Menendez’s desperate search for funds from relatives and of friends as the relationship between the two blossomed. “She wasn’t going to let Bob know she was having financial problems…Bob was kept out of conversations, regardless of whether she was receiving money from her friends to support her.”

Previously, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz attributed a central role to Nadine Menendez in her husband’s corruption allegations, saying he hid behind her by communicating through her with the businessmen who gave him the bribes.

“He was careful not to text too much,” she said. “He used Nadine as an intermediary to pass messages to people paying bribes. »

Menendez faces 18 charges in total, including obstruction of justice, bribery, fraud and acting as a foreign agent. If convicted on each count, he faces up to 45 years in prison.

Nadine Menendez is also charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed until at least July because a recently discovered serious medical problem requires surgery.

The trial follows accusations against the three-term senator last fall, when Menendez held a high-ranking post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was forced from that position after his arrest, but he resisted calls for his resignation, saying he would run as an independent this year if he ran.

A jury picked in the afternoon was introduced to the case by a prosecutor who said the trial was about a “public official who put his own interests ahead of his duty to the people.”

“This is Robert Menendez, U.S. senator from New Jersey,” Pomerantz said, pointing to the 70-year-old. “And he was responsible for making big decisions, including decisions that affected the national security of this country. He was also corrupt. … This was not politics as usual. This was politics for profit. “

On several occasions, the prosecutor mentioned gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz as bribes leading to criminal charges, including bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and act as a foreign agent of Egypt. She said the FBI found gold bars and more than $400,000 in cash in the Menendez home “in a safe, in their jacket pockets, in their shoes, all over the house.”

In exchange, Pomerantz said, the senator took formal steps to help Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer, businessman Wael Hana and a third businessman, Jose Uribe. Daibes and Hana, who are on trial with Menendez, have pleaded not guilty. The jury will hear opening statements from their attorneys on Thursday.

Uribe recently pleaded guilty to charges as part of a cooperation agreement, and Pomerantz told jurors they would hear him testify.

Pomerantz said Daibes, in part, delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to get the senator to help him close a multimillion-dollar deal with an investment fund Qatari by acting in a manner favorable to the government of Qatar.

She also said Menendez did things to benefit Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana, with the businessman striking a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met requirements Islamic foods.

“This case concerns a public official who gave priority to greed and who put his power up for sale,” said the prosecutor.

After the jury was sent home for the day, the defense moved for a mistrial, saying the government had gone too far in its opening statement. The judge denied it.

As he left court for the day, Menendez said he “thought everything went well” and said as he got into his car that the defense attorney “did very well.”

During his opening, Pomerantz said Nadine Menendez had known the three businessmen for many years, and Weitzman said Menendez had also known Daibes for decades. The prosecutor said the bribery scheme began in 2018, shortly after the couple began dating that year.

She said Hana was a failed businessman who knew nothing about the Halal meat certification business when he obtained the monopoly thanks to favors Menendez gave to the Egyptian government. Pomerantz said Hana recruited the deep-pocketed Daibes because Hana, strapped for cash, was unable to keep his corrupt promises.

“Menendez put his power up for sale and Daibes and Hana were happy to buy it,” Pomerantz said.

Weitzman called Menendez an “American patriot” and prosecutors “completely wrong.” He said Menendez “took no bribes and accepted no cash, gold or cars,” and added that the senator “has never been and is not an agent foreigner of the Egyptian government”. He didn’t break the law, period.

Pomerantz, however, said the businessmen showered Menendez and his wife with gifts to ensure Menendez would help them, and that evidence will show Daibes’ fingerprints and DNA were on money found at his home. Weitzman countered that Daibes’ fingerprint was found on only one of hundreds of envelopes belonging to the senator, and he said that would not be a surprise given the decades Menendez knew him. All other fingerprints, he added, were found on envelopes of cash belonging to Nadine Menendez.

The lawyer said the gold bars were in the house because of a “cultural” practice by Nadine Menendez, who grew up in a Lebanese family that kept gold for financial security and for her. give as a gift.

Weitzman told jurors they would see that Menendez’s family, who fled Cuba before he was born, had lost all of their savings except for money stashed in their home. As a result, he said, Menendez had been withdrawing between $400 and $500 a week for decades to store at home, keeping much of it in bags in the home’s basement.

“You won’t see any fingerprints or DNA on the senator’s money. Every fingerprint and DNA was found in his wife’s closet or in his safe at a bank,” Weitzman said. “Who has gold bars at home? Who has that much cash at home? I admit it smells a little strange… resist the urge, listen to the evidence. There is an innocent explanation for the gold and cash.

Weitzman said there was nothing unusual or abnormal about Menendez’s dealings with Egypt and Qatar because senators should engage in diplomacy and help their constituents. He noted that Menendez had been tough on Egypt, including its president, over its human rights record.

This trial represents the second time Menendez has been criminally charged in federal court in the past decade. In 2017, a federal jury deadlocked on corruption charges brought in New Jersey, and Justice Department prosecutors did not seek to retry it.