Washington — Prosecutors in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial rested their case towards the New Jersey Democrat on Friday, bringing an finish to seven weeks of testimony from greater than two dozen witnesses they’ve known as to influence a jury that the senator used his political affect to profit three businessmen and two overseas governments in change for bribes.
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 in 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 legal 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 dwelling.
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 legal investigations into his enterprise associates. Hana, a longtime buddy of Nadine Menendez, indicated that the senator and his spouse may “make these things go away,” in response to Uribe.
The insurance coverage dealer testified that he requested the senator directly for his help throughout two conferences in August and September 2019, months after he stated he handed Nadine Menendez $15,000 in money in a restaurant parking zone for a downpayment on the Mercedes. Uribe made her automotive funds till June 2022 — the identical month the FBI searched the Menendezes’ dwelling and located over $480,000 in money stuffed in envelopes, coats, footwear and luggage, and 13 gold bars price greater than $100,000.
“I paid for the car as an arrangement with Nadine that I will provide a car, in return for her getting Mr. Menendez to use his power to stop [the investigations],” Uribe stated earlier this month.
Gurbir Grewal, the then-attorney normal for New Jersey, instructed jurors a few January 2019 name and September 2019 assembly in which Menendez raised a priority “about a pending criminal manner.”
“I can’t talk to you about this,” Grewal recalled telling Menendez.
After the September assembly with the state lawyer normal, Uribe stated Menendez instructed him, “That thing that you asked me about, there’s nothing there. I give you your peace.” The senator later boasted about saving him twice, Uribe testified.
But Uribe’s credibility also came under fire throughout cross-examination by protection attorneys. He admitted to a protracted listing of lies which have culminated in a variety of legal costs through the years.
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 regulation. 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 workers. 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 stated was uncommon for the nation — one of many largest recipients of U.S. army support.
“When the Americans request a meeting, we get meetings,” Bret Tate, a former agricultural attaché in Cairo, stated.
As the U.S. continued to press Egypt, Ted McKinney, a former high agricultural official, said he received a name from Menendez with the message: “Stop interfering with my constituent.”
“I felt he was telling me to stand down and stop doing all of the things that we were doing to try to revive some sense of competition in the U.S. beef market,” McKinney instructed jurors in May. “It was the first time I’d ever had a call that we thought would clearly harm elements of the U.S. food and [agriculture] industry.”
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 by means of his spouse and Hana, together with secretly serving to the nation foyer his colleagues to launch $300 million in support that had been held up over human rights considerations and offering it with particulars about U.S. Embassy workers 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 bunch 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 meant topic of the surveillance. The undercover brokers snapped photographs and took silent footage with a hid video digital camera.
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 time 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 save lots of her dwelling 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 a variety of incidents involving the senator and Egyptian officers that she thought-about to be uncommon.
Arkin instructed jurors that Menendez held conferences with Egyptian officers that she had not been instructed of, a deviation from regular follow.
For one of many conferences she was conscious of, she stated 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 unusual item,” she stated. 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 stated the senator instructed his employees to plan the go to with an Egyptian intelligence officer posted in the nation’s embassy in Washington. The journeys, she stated, had been usually deliberate by the State Department.
“All of this Egypt stuff is very weird. I’ve never seen anything like 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 in order for the senator to attempt to affect a federal financial institution fraud case towards the true property developer.
The case got here up as Menendez was contemplating recommending his longtime buddy, Philip Sellinger, to be U.S. lawyer for the District of New Jersey.
Sellinger, who now holds the job, said the senator instructed him he thought Daibes “was being treated unfairly” by the U.S. lawyer’s workplace and “hoped that if I became U.S. attorney that I would look at it carefully.” Sellinger testified that he instructed the senator he could should recuse himself from the case if appointed due to an unrelated lawsuit his regulation agency had dealt with associated to Daibes.
Sellinger stated their longtime friendship ended shortly after that and Menendez instructed him he would not nominate him for the function.
But Sellinger stated he “never believed [Menendez] to be asking me to do anything unethical or improper,” and the senator did finally suggest him for the place.
As Menendez was making an attempt to assist Daibes, he was researching the value of gold online, in response to proof launched by the prosecution. An FBI agent testified that he reviewed data 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 stated. After that, he repeatedly researched the value of gold.
“One kilo gold bar,” a type 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 in the Menendez dwelling, in response to skilled testimony and proof proven to jurors. Prosecutors have linked among the gold discovered contained in the senator’s dwelling to Daibes and Hana by means of serial numbers.
But a New Jersey jeweler, who testified Wednesday about promoting tens of hundreds of {dollars} price of gold for Nadine Menendez, stated he didn’t file 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 said she needed to pay the bills,” he recalled, including that Nadine Menendez instructed him the gold was from her household. “She had expenses in, like, home bills.”
In May of that 12 months, she requested him to promote 4 one-ounce gold cash price $7,200 and one other two one-kilogram gold bars, the jeweler stated. They did not talk about the place she received them from or why she needed to promote them, he stated. The requests got here weeks earlier than the FBI executed a search warrant on the Menendez dwelling.
Jurors additionally heard this week from an FBI specialist about when among the payments discovered among the many practically half one million {dollars} in money stockpiled in the senator’s dwelling had been issued. Evidence confirmed tons of of the payments entered circulation beginning in 2018, when the alleged corruption scheme started. But protection attorneys stated the newer payments made up solely a fraction of the stash.
What occurs subsequent
Lawyers for Menendez, Hana and Daibes have stated they might name greater than a dozen witnesses, starting Monday, however have not stated whether or not any of the defendants will testify themselves.
The choose instructed jurors final week that he expects the case might be in their arms by the tip of the week of July 8.
In their opening assertion and through cross-examination during the last seven weeks, the senator’s attorneys have shifted the blame to his spouse, which legal experts say could backfire with jurors.
Nathalie Nieves contributed reporting.