At the start of his corruption trial in New York City, a federal jury was alternately introduced to Bob Menendez as a bribe-taking U.S. senator who betrayed his country, and as an American patriot.
A prosecutor and a defense lawyer delivered contrasting visions of the once-powerful Democrat and the senior senator from New Jersey. Central to the openings from both the government and the senator's advocate in Manhattan federal court was Nadine Menendez, a woman the Democrat began dating in early 2018 before marrying her two years later and moving into her Englewood Cliffs home.
“She kept him in the dark about what she was asking others to give her,” defense lawyer Avi Weitzman said of Nadine Menendez's desperate search for funds from relatives and friends as the relationship between the two blossomed. “She wasn’t going to let Bob know that she had financial problems...Bob was kept out of the conversations, whether she got money from friends to support her."
Earlier, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz assigned Nadine Menendez a central role in her husband's alleged corruption, saying he hid behind her by communicating through her to the businessmen who delivered the bribes.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
“He was careful not to send too many texts,” she said. “He used Nadine as his go-between to deliver messages to and from the people paying bribes.”
Menendez faces 18 counts in all, including obstruction of justice, bribery, fraud and acting as a foreign agent. If convicted on each count, he faces up to 45 years in prison.
Nadine Menendez is charged in the case as well, but her trial has been postponed until at least July because a recently discovered serious medical condition requires surgery.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
The trial stems from charges lodged against the three-term senator last fall when Menendez held a powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was forced to quit that post after his arrest, but he resisted calls for his resignation, saying he'll run as an independent this year if he runs at all.
A jury chosen in the afternoon was introduced to the case by a prosecutor who said the trial was about a “public official who put his own interests above his duty to the people.”
“This is Robert Menendez, U.S. senator from New Jersey," Pomerantz said as she pointed to the 70-year-old man. “And he was entrusted with making big decisions, including decisions that affected this country’s national security. He was also corrupt...This was not politics as usual. This was politics for profit."
Repeatedly, the prosecutor mentioned gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz as bribes leading to criminal charges including bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. She said the FBI found gold bars and over $400,000 in cash in the Menendez home “in a safe, in jacket pockets, in shoes, all over the house.”
In return, Pomerantz said, the senator took official acts to aid Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer, businessman Wael Hana and a third businessman, Jose Uribe. Daibes and Hana, who are on trial with Menendez, have pleaded not guilty. The jury will hear opening statements from their lawyers Thursday.
Uribe recently pleaded guilty to charges in a cooperation deal, and Pomerantz told jurors they will hear him testify.
Pomerantz said Daibes, in part, 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.
She also said Menendez did things benefiting Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana as the businessman secured a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.
"This case is about a public official who put greed first, who put his power up for sale," the prosecutor alleged.
After the jury was sent home for the day, the defense requested a mistrial, claiming the government went too far in its opening statement. The judge denied it.
As he was leaving court for the day, Menendez said he "thought it went well" and said while getting into his car that the defense attorney "did great."
During her opening, Pomerantz said Nadine Menendez has known the three businessmen for many years, and Weitzman said Menendez has known Daibes for decades as well. The prosecutor said the corruption scheme began in 2018, soon after the couple began dating that year.
She said Hana was a failed businessman who knew nothing about the business of Halal meat certification when he was awarded the monopoly through favors Menendez did for the government of Egypt. Pomerantz said Hana recruited the deep-pocketed Daibes because the cash-strapped Hana was unable to deliver on bribery promises.
"Menendez put his power up for sale and Daibes and Hana were happy to buy it," said Pomerantz.
Weitzman 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," and added that the senator "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 Daibes' fingerprints and DNA were on cash found in his home. Weitzman countered that Daibes' fingerprint was found on only one of hundreds of envelopes belonging to the senator, and he said that would not be a surprise given the decades that Menendez had known him. All the rest of the fingerprints, he added, were found on envelopes of cash belonging to Nadine Menendez.
The lawyer said the gold bars were in the home because of a “cultural” practice by Nadine Menendez, who was raised in a family from Lebanon who kept gold for financial safety and to give as gifts.
Weitzman told jurors they will see that Menendez's family, which fled Cuba before he was born, had lost its life savings except for cash hidden in their home. As a result, he said, Menendez had been withdrawing as much as $400 to $500 a week for decades to store at home, keeping much of it in bags in the home's basement.
“You will not see any fingerprints and any DNA on the senator’s cash. Every fingerprint and DNA was found in his wife’s closet or in her safe deposit box at a bank,” Weitzman said. "Who has gold bars in their home? Who has so much cash in their home? I’ll acknowledge it smells a bit weird...resist that urge, listen to the evidence. There is innocent explanation for the gold and the cash.”
Weitzman said there was nothing unusual or wrong about Menendez's dealings with Egypt and Qatar because senators must engage in diplomacy and help constituents. He noted that Menendez was tough on Egypt, including its president, over its human rights record.
The trial represents the second time Menendez 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 with the Justice Department did not seek to retry him.
