New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was found guilty Tuesday morning of an elaborate bribery scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars and gold bars to protect and enrich three businessmen and the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
“Mr. Menendez sold the power of his office,” prosecutor Paul Monteleoni told jurors in the government’s closing statement.
“It wasn’t enough for him to be one of the most powerful people in Washington,” Monteleoni said. “It wasn’t enough for him to be entrusted by the public with the power to approve billions of dollars of US military aid to foreign countries.”
“Robert Menendez wanted all that power — but he also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife.”
Menendez faces up to 20 years in prison.
From The New York Post:
His attorneys tried to poke holes in the government’s case by arguing that Menendez’s “beautiful, tall” wife Nadine had “kept him in the dark” about what she was asking co-defendants Wael Hana and Fred Daibes to give her.
But Manhattan federal prosecutors detailed a dizzying array of actions Menendez took between 2018 and 2022 on behalf of his cronies, including a disgraced New Jersey insurance broker who bought Nadine a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 in exchange for help scuttling state criminal probes.
“I saved your ass, not once but twice,” the Garden State pol bragged to Jose Uribe — who pleaded guilty and flipped on Menendez— during an August 2020 dinner at the north Jersey restaurant Segovia, Uribe testified.
“Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” Nadine Menendez texted her husband after receiving the first payment toward the new car, using the French phrase for “love of my life.” She added a heart emoji at the end of the message.
This story is developing…
Sen. Bob Menendez convicted of sprawling gold bar bribery scheme https://t.co/eJt04mOcEe pic.twitter.com/SZbTbcVWwO
— New York Post (@nypost) July 16, 2024
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