Senator Bob Menendez was allegedly bribed by a New Jersey businessman who admitted to giving the senator’s wife a Mercedes in exchange for influence.
Jose Uribe, the businessman who pleaded guilty in March and is cooperating with prosecutors, was asked on the witness stand whom he bribed.
Uribe replied that he had bribed Menendez and conspired with another businessman Wael Hana. Uribe also said that the senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, had accepted the bribes he paid. The senator, his wife, and Hana have all pleaded not guilty. A third businessman, Fred Daibes, has also pleaded not guilty.
Menendez and his wife are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes, some of which were allegedly in the form of gold bars in exchange for official acts from Menendez as senator.
Menendez is also accused of accepting bribes to benefit the Egyptian government
Prosecutors have said that Uribe sought the senator’s help to keep at bay a criminal probe from the New Jersey state attorney general’s office into his associates.
According to prosecutors, Bob called then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to discuss the issue. Grewal, who now leads enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission, testified on Thursday (June 6) that Menendez’s alleged attempts to discuss a specific ongoing criminal case were “pretty unprecedented in my experience”. Menendez is also accused of accepting bribes to benefit the Egyptian government.
“There won’t be a single piece of tangible evidence the senator accepted a bribe. There is an innocent explanation for the gold and the cash,” Weitzman said.
Menendez has served in the Senate since 2006. He stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shortly after he was indicted in September but has not addressed calls for his resignation.