NEW YORK — At the opening of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez’s trial, a prosecutor pointed the finger at him, calling the New Jersey Democrat corrupt and telling a federal jury in New York on Wednesday that he traded his power in return for bribes of gold bars, cash and a car. Later, Menendez’s lawyer called prosecutors “dead wrong.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said the 70-year-old politician delivered favors for three New Jersey businessmen since 2018. And she also put his wife, Nadine Menendez, at the center of the crimes, saying the scheme started in 2018 when he and his wife-to-be had begun dating.
Pomerantz said the senator was careful not to send too many written communications involving the bribery scheme and used his wife to communicate.
“He was careful not to send too many texts,” she said, adding he had Nadine Menendez do it for him. “He used Nadine as his go between to deliver messages to and from the people paying bribes.”
Nadine Menendez is charged in the case, but her trial has been delayed until at least July because of a medical condition that requires surgery. She has pleaded not guilty.
The three-term senator also has insisted since his fall arrest that he’s not guilty of bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. He has said his interactions with the governments of Egypt and Qatar were proper and not illegal.
When his lawyer, Avi Weitzman, delivered his opening statement, he called Menendez “an American patriot” and prosecutors “dead wrong.”
He said Menendez “took no bribes and did not accept any cash, or gold, or a car.”
Weitzman added: “He was never and is not a foreign agent of the government of Egypt. He did not violate the law period.”
Pomerantz, though, said the businessmen showered Menendez and his wife with gifts to ensure Menendez would help them and evidence will show that the fingerprints and DNA of one of his codefendants was on cash found in his home.
Menendez is on trial with two of the businessmen. A third has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the other defendants.
For the senator, the trial represents the second time he has been criminally charged in a federal court in the last decade.
In 2017, a federal jury deadlocked on corruption charges brought in New Jersey, and prosecutors did not seek to retry him.
Those charges were unrelated to the current prosecution of Menendez, who held the powerful post of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he was forced from the job after the new charges were revealed last fall.
Menendez is on trial with Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer, and businessman Wael Hana. They too have pleaded not guilty.
An indictment alleges Daibes delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to get the senator to help him secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund by acting in ways favorable to Qatar’s government.
The indictment also said Menendez did things benefitting Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana as the businessman secured a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.
Menendez has said he will not be seeking reelection on the Democratic ticket this fall, although he has not ruled out running as an independent.
