The allegations date again to 2018, across the time the Democratic senator started relationship the girl who’s now his spouse, Nadine Menendez, whose trial was postponed as she recovers from breast most cancers surgical procedure.
Over the final month and a half, prosecutors detailed a wide-ranging corruption scheme through which Menendez allegedly used his affect because the then-chairman of the highly effective Senate Foreign Relations Committee to secretly profit Egypt; pressured a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to guard a halal certification monopoly Egypt granted to a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana; interfered in a prison investigations by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office into the associates of a second New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe; and tried to affect a federal prosecution of a 3rd New Jersey businessman, Fred Daibes.
In return, prosecutors say, the businessmen supplied Menendez and his spouse with lavish presents, together with money, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, furnishings and mortgage funds as Nadine Menendez was dealing with foreclosures on her house.
Hana and Daibes are on trial with Menendez. All three have pleaded not responsible.
Businessman says Mercedes was bribe
Adam Gray / AP
Uribe, who pleaded responsible in March, was the prosecution’s star witness, telling jurors that he bribed the senator by shopping for his spouse a luxurious automotive for the aim of disrupting two state prison investigations into his enterprise associates. Hana, a longtime good friend of Nadine Menendez, indicated that the senator and his spouse may “make these items go away,” in response to Uribe.
The insurance coverage dealer testified that he requested the senator immediately for his assist throughout two conferences in August and September 2019, months after he mentioned he handed Nadine Menendez $15,000 in money in a restaurant car parking zone for a downpayment on the Mercedes. Uribe made her automotive funds till June 2022 — the identical month the FBI searched the Menendezes’ house and located over $480,000 in money stuffed in envelopes, coats, sneakers and baggage, and 13 gold bars price greater than $100,000.
“I paid for the automotive as an association with Nadine that I’ll present a automotive, in return for her getting Mr. Menendez to make use of his energy to cease [the investigations],” Uribe mentioned earlier this month.
Gurbir Grewal, the then-attorney common for New Jersey, informed jurors a couple of January 2019 name and September 2019 assembly through which Menendez raised a priority “a couple of pending prison method.”
“I am unable to discuss to you about this,” Grewal recalled telling Menendez.
After the September assembly with the state legal professional common, Uribe mentioned Menendez informed him, “That factor that you just requested me about, there’s nothing there. I provide you with your peace.” The senator later boasted about saving him twice, Uribe testified.
But Uribe’s credibility additionally got here below hearth throughout cross-examination by protection attorneys. He admitted to a protracted record of lies which have culminated in plenty of prison costs over time.
An agent for Egypt?
Another piece central to the alleged scheme was a New Jersey startup owned by Hana, which prosecutors say was used to funnel bribe funds to the senator and his spouse.
In April 2019, Egypt granted a profitable monopoly to Hana’s halal certification firm, setting off alarms on the Department of Agriculture. Before that, 4 corporations had break up guaranteeing that meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt was ready in response to Islamic legislation. The abrupt change confused U.S. officers as a result of Hana’s firm didn’t have any prior expertise in halal certification and had few staff. The determination elevated meat prices in Egypt and was seen as detrimental to U.S. companies, in response to a number of officers who testified.
The U.S. was stonewalled when it sought solutions from Egypt, which officers mentioned was uncommon for the nation — one of many largest recipients of U.S. army help.
“When the Americans request a gathering, we get conferences,” Bret Tate, a former agricultural attaché in Cairo, mentioned.
As the U.S. continued to press Egypt, Ted McKinney, a former prime agricultural official, mentioned he received a name from Menendez with the message: “Stop interfering with my constituent.”
“I felt he was telling me to face down and cease doing the entire issues that we had been doing to attempt to revive some sense of competitors within the U.S. beef market,” McKinney informed jurors in May. “It was the primary time I’d ever had a name that we thought would clearly hurt parts of the U.S. meals and [agriculture] trade.”
Menendez’s attorneys challenged the characterization of the dialog, saying he was doing his job by serving to a constituent.
By that point, prosecutors alleged, Menendez was doing favors for Egyptian officers that he knew via his spouse and Hana, together with secretly serving to the nation foyer his colleagues to launch $300 million in help that had been held up over human rights issues and offering it with particulars about U.S. Embassy staff in Cairo, which prosecutors argued was delicate info.
On May 21, 2019, quickly after Egypt granted the monopoly, the FBI was surveilling an upscale steakhouse close to the White House, ready for his or her goal who had come from New York to reach, in response to two FBI brokers who testified.
Two brokers, undercover as a husband and spouse on a date, sat on the restaurant’s patio close to a gaggle that included an Egyptian official, Hana and his enterprise affiliate. Then Menendez and his spouse confirmed up. It’s unclear who the FBI’s goal was, although an agent testified that the senator was not the supposed topic of the surveillance. The undercover brokers snapped photographs and took silent footage with a hid video digicam.
One of the agent’s testified that she heard the senator’s spouse ask the opposite group, “What else can the love of my life do for you?” The agent didn’t hear the response.
With the help of the senator, Nadine Menendez arrange a shell firm in summer season 2019, which was used to obtain funds from a “low-or-no-show job” at Hana’s firm, in response to prosecutors. At the time, she was tens of hundreds of {dollars} behind on her mortgage and dealing with foreclosures. Hana wired her $23,000 to avoid wasting her house from foreclosures after which put her on the corporate’s payroll for $10,000 a month, a former lawyer for the businessman’s firm testified.
Sarah Arkin, a former senior aide to Menendez, testified this week about plenty of incidents involving the senator and Egyptian officers that she thought-about to be uncommon.
Arkin informed jurors that Menendez held conferences with Egyptian officers that she had not been informed of, a deviation from regular apply.
For one of many conferences she was conscious of, she mentioned the senator had handwritten the invitation for the Egyptian protection attaché in Washington and Hana to go to his workplace. The handwritten invite was “an uncommon merchandise,” she mentioned. When the assembly occurred in March 2018, Nadine Menendez, who had simply begun relationship the senator, was additionally there.
In September 2021, when Arkin was serving to Menendez put together for a congressional delegation journey to Egypt and Qatar, she mentioned the senator instructed his workers to plan the go to with an Egyptian intelligence officer posted within the nation’s embassy in Washington. The journeys, she mentioned, had been usually deliberate by the State Department.
“All of this Egypt stuff may be very bizarre. I’ve by no means seen something prefer it,” one other staffer texted Arkin as they deliberate the journey.
Menendez’s attorneys have portrayed his interactions with Egyptian officers as one other a part of his job as a member of the highly effective Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez stepped down from his function as committee chair when he was indicted final fall.
Gold bars and Qatar
Prosecutors say Daibes, the third businessman indicted, bribed the couple with money and gold bars to ensure that the senator to attempt to affect a federal financial institution fraud case in opposition to the actual property developer.
The case got here up as Menendez was contemplating recommending his longtime good friend, Philip Sellinger, to be U.S. legal professional for the District of New Jersey.
Sellinger, who now holds the job, mentioned the senator informed him he thought Daibes “was being handled unfairly” by the U.S. legal professional’s workplace and “hoped that if I turned U.S. legal professional that I’d have a look at it fastidiously.” Sellinger testified that he informed the senator he might need to recuse himself from the case if appointed due to an unrelated lawsuit his legislation agency had dealt with associated to Daibes.
Sellinger mentioned their longtime friendship ended shortly after that and Menendez informed him he would not nominate him for the function.
But Sellinger mentioned he “by no means believed [Menendez] to be asking me to do something unethical or improper,” and the senator did ultimately suggest him for the place.
As Menendez was attempting to assist Daibes, he was researching the worth of gold on-line, in response to proof launched by the prosecution. An FBI agent testified that he reviewed information together with the senator’s web search historical past relationship again to 2008. The senator’s first search about gold was in April 2019, the agent mentioned. After that, he repeatedly researched the value of gold.
“One kilo gold bar,” a kind of searches learn.
The on-line searches additionally occurred because the senator allegedly used his affect to assist Daibes safe a $95 million funding from a Qatari funding fund by taking actions favorable to Qatar’s authorities.
Nearly a dozen envelopes of money with tens of hundreds of {dollars} bearing the fingerprints or DNA of Daibes had been discovered within the Menendez house, in response to knowledgeable testimony and proof proven to jurors. Prosecutors have linked among the gold discovered contained in the senator’s house to Daibes and Hana via serial numbers.
But a New Jersey jeweler, who testified Wednesday about promoting tens of hundreds of {dollars} price of gold for Nadine Menendez, mentioned he didn’t document the serial numbers of the gold he bought for her. The jeweler recalled that she first requested him to promote two one-kilogram bars of gold in March 2022, which fetched practically $60,000 every.
“She mentioned she wanted to pay the payments,” he recalled, including that Nadine Menendez informed him the gold was from her household. “She had bills in, like, house payments.”
In May of that yr, she requested him to promote 4 one-ounce gold cash price $7,200 and one other two one-kilogram gold bars, the jeweler mentioned. They did not focus on the place she received them from or why she wished to promote them, he mentioned. The requests got here weeks earlier than the FBI executed a search warrant on the Menendez house.
Jurors additionally heard this week from an FBI specialist about when among the payments discovered among the many practically half 1,000,000 {dollars} in money stockpiled within the senator’s house had been issued. Evidence confirmed tons of of the payments entered circulation beginning in 2018, when the alleged corruption scheme started. But protection attorneys mentioned the newer payments made up solely a fraction of the stash.
What occurs subsequent
Lawyers for Menendez, Hana and Daibes have mentioned they may name greater than a dozen witnesses, starting Monday, however have not mentioned whether or not any of the defendants will testify themselves.
The decide informed jurors final week that he expects the case will probably be of their fingers by the top of the week of July 8.
In their opening assertion and through cross-examination over the past seven weeks, the senator’s attorneys have shifted the blame to his spouse, which authorized specialists say may backfire with jurors.
Nathalie Nieves contributed reporting.
