Sen. Bob Menendez’s lawyer wrapped up his closing statement on Wednesday, calling prosecutors’ case “shaky and rotten to its core” and attempting to appeal to jurors’ sense of patriotism as he asked a Manhattan federal court jury to acquit the New Jersey Democrat.
“They did a lot of work — they don’t have it,” attorney Adam Fee said of the evidence in the case, which includes phone records, video surveillance, search history and GPS records. “They don’t have the proof. They did all that, all that hard work that they’re proud of … but they have nothing more than a story.”
Menendez has been charged with 18 courts of bribery and obstruction for accepting bribes in exchange for using his influence as head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to help N.J. businessmen and serve foreign governments.
His wife, Nadine Menendez, and the two businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are also defendants, although Nadine’s trial has been postponed.
Fee argued that Menendez’s actions with Egypt were made in the interest of his constituents and said there was “no evidence” the senator ever took a bribe.
“More theories, more rolling blob of shifting and evolving inferences that you just know is true because there’s devastating evidence,” Fee said in a mocking tone. “Ask yourself when you hear that — where is it? Where is it? Do I trust the story? What about all the stuff you abandoned? What about the stuff you didn’t mention?”
He claimed that Menendez didn’t have influence over an agriculture official, Ted McKinney, who he’s been accused of telling to “stop interfering” with Hana’s halal company, and that he had no knowledge of his wife, Nadine, getting help with her mortgage or car payments.
Fee said that Nadine, who wed the senator in 2020, kept her husband in the dark, attempting to hide from her husband the “chaos and drama of her life” and present an image “that was a little rosy.”
“That’s the whole point of Instagram, right?” Fee said. “It’s a little bit better than reality.”
Calling the prosecutors “mistaken” and the case “jumbled,” he implored the jury to “resist the temptation to pick the salacious story about a corrupt politician.”
“The United States of America wins when thin cases brought by overzealous prosecutors are rejected when the evidence isn’t there,” he said. “That will be a win for this country.”
Larry Lustberg, Wael Hana’s lawyer, didn’t dispute that his client gave the Menendezes gold bars — but said they were “goodwill gifts” and decried the prosecutors making it seem that “generosity” was “evil.”
He also argued that the $30,000 Hana paid Nadine was a loan that could have been a gift, but not a bribe.
“Was that a good investment, to pay her $30,000? Who knows?” he said.
César de Castro, lawyer for real estate developer Fred Daibes, described his client’s “celebrity” status in his hometown of Edgewater, N.J., and his years-long friendship with Menendez.
“Friends look out for each other,” de Castro said. “You don’t bribe a close friend.”
