U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) left a federal courthouse Wednesday in New York following a day-long bribery trial.
Larry Neumeister/AP
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Larry Neumeister/AP
NEW YORK — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez said he chose not to testify at his trial in New York on Wednesday because he believed prosecutors had failed to prove “every aspect” of the bribery case against him. The decision clears the way for early closing arguments.
Lawyers for Democrats shelved the case after calling several witnesses over two days to rebut seven weeks of testimony and hundreds of evidence and communications from federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
Menendez, 70, maintains that he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold and cash between 2018 and 2022 in exchange for charges that he used his influence in the Senate to benefit three New Jersey businessmen. He insisted that he was innocent.
Judge Sidney H. Stein asked Menendez to stand up from his seat to confirm that it was his personal decision not to testify. Menendez said he decided not to testify after extensive conversations with his attorneys.
“In my opinion, the government failed to prove every aspect of the case,” Menendez told reporters as he left court.
He said “giving them another chance” by appearing in court “means nothing to me at all”.
“I expect my attorney to make a strong and convincing summary of how the evidence came out, where they failed across the board and how the jury was going to reach a not guilty verdict,” Menendez said. His car had “Happy Fourth of July” written on it.
Two businessmen he is accused of taking bribes – Fred Daibes and Wael Hana – are on trial with him. A third man, Jose Uribe, admitted the charges and testified against the three during the trial.
Debis and Harner also pleaded not guilty and were given the opportunity to enter a defense, but the judge told jurors the responsibility rested with prosecutors and no defense was required. Debes’ attorney took a break at the same time as Menendez and did not enter a defense. Harner’s attorneys began laying out their case and called a Harner employee as a witness.
Prosecutors spent seven weeks presenting their case before taking a break last Friday. They presented evidence that Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, mostly served as an intermediary between senators and businessmen.
Nadine Menendez, 57, who began dating the senator in 2018, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, but her trial has been delayed as she recovers from breast cancer surgery.
Lawyers for Bob Menendez argue that his wife hid her financial problems from him, including her inability to pay the mortgage on her home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and her many dealings with businessmen. They also said she inherited gold found in a bedroom during an FBI raid on their home in 2022.
An FBI agent testified earlier at the trial that he ordered the seizure of more than $486,000 in cash and more than $100,000 in gold bars during the raid because he suspected a crime may have occurred.
Among the witnesses called by Menendez’s attorneys was his 80-year-old sister, Caridad Gonzalez, who told the jury that after Menendez’s parents fled Cuba in 1951, her family often Keep large amounts of cash at home and only carry secret stashes of money.
“This is normal. This is a Cuban thing,” she said.
Bob Menendez was born after the family arrived in Manhattan.
Menendez has pleaded not guilty to bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. After the charges were announced in September, he was forced to resign from his important position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He has resisted calls to resign from the Senate and filed papers to run for re-election as an independent a month ago.
Prosecutors allege that Debis delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to obtain the senator’s help in striking a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund, prompting Menendez to take steps that would benefit Qatar. government way.
They also said Menendez did things to benefit Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana as the businessman struck a valuable deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements .
Menendez was indicted on corruption charges in 2017 on unrelated charges, but the jury deadlocked.
