A jury discovered Nadine Menendez responsible on all counts in a bribery case during which prosecutors mentioned she was a “critical participant” within the five-year fraud together with her husband, former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, as they accepted money, gold bars and a luxurious automobile from three New Jersey males searching for assist with enterprise dealings or authorized woes.
The jury started contemplating the costs in opposition to the 58-year-old on Friday in Manhattan federal courtroom. They returned the responsible verdict late Monday afternoon on all 15 counts she confronted, together with bribery, conspiracy, working as a overseas agent and extra.
Menendez, carrying a pink facemask, stood beside her protection legal professional as the decision was learn following the three-week trial. Sentencing was scheduled for June 12.
She was discovered responsible in the identical federal courthouse in Manhattan the place a special jury convicted her husband of most of the similar prices in 2024.
Her husband, the 71-year-old former senator, is about to report back to jail in June to start an 11-year sentence. He stepped down from his Senate put up after his conviction. Repeatedly throughout the trial, prosecutors mentioned Bob and Nadine Menendez have been “companions in crime,” detailing the timeline of the whirlwind romance between the couple that started in early 2018 and continued after legal prices have been introduced in opposition to them in Sept. 2023.
Each Nadine and Bob Menendez mentioned they’re harmless and by no means took any bribes.
Prosecutors mentioned Nadine Menendez was a companion in her husband’s crimes, serving to to gather payoffs from three New Jersey businessmen in a wide-ranging scheme. The protection argued a few of the gold she obtained was not bribes, however reasonably have been handed down from her household or have been presents from businessmen who have been longtime associates. NBC New York’s Jonathan Dienst reviews.
Throughout a closing argument Thursday, Nadine Menendez’s lawyer, Barry Coburn, had argued that the proof was inadequate to end in a conviction.
In a rebuttal argument Friday morning, Assistant U.S. Legal professional Daniel Richenthal urged the jury to convict Nadine Menendez, saying they must consider that over $450,000 in money and gold bars price a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} extra that have been discovered by the FBI of their dwelling have been presents reasonably than bribes.
“They weren’t gifts,” he mentioned. “They were bribes.”
He referred to as the proof in opposition to her “consistent and overwhelming” and described her as an “active participant, a critical participant” within the bribery scheme.
Prosecutors accused her of beginning to facilitating bribes to the senator across the time that they started relationship, earlier than they married within the fall of 2020.
On the time, she was at risk of dropping her dwelling in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, after lacking almost $20,000 in mortgage funds, trial testimony confirmed. A longtime good friend, Wael Hana, supplied money to save lots of the house — and prosecutors mentioned that in return, the senator started serving to Hana protect a enterprise monopoly he had organized with the Egyptian authorities to certify that imported meat met non secular necessities.
Born in Lebanon of Armenian descent, Nadine Menendez started relationship the senator in early 2018 when she was generally known as Nadine Arslanian. Prosecutors mentioned she quickly joined a bribery scheme involving three New Jersey businessmen. The couple was married within the fall of 2020.
Bob Menendez, a Democrat whose Senate profession started in 2006, carried out the bribery scheme whereas he held highly effective positions on the influential Senate Overseas Relations Committee.
He was compelled from the committee after he was charged within the case.
Nadine and Bob Menendez have been initially imagined to tried collectively, however the trial for Nadine was postponed final 12 months after she was recognized with breast most cancers and underwent surgical procedure.
