Sen. Bob Menendez was found guilty of more than a dozen felonies alleging he sold his influence to a trio of New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government in exchange for stacks of cash and bricks of gold — a stunning verdict making him the first sitting senator to be convicted of conspiring to act as a foreign agent.
Jurors took around 13 hours of deliberations to reach their verdict following the two-month corruption trial at Manhattan Federal Court, determining the embattled New Jersey lawmaker accepted almost half a million dollars in cash, $150,000 worth of gold bars, a luxury convertible, flashy watches, and Formula 1 tickets in exchange for abusing his position as chair of the powerful Senate Relations Committee.
The panel found Menendez’s co-defendants, businessmen Wael Hana guilty of all his six charges and Fred Daibes guilty of all seven of his charges.
In their sprawling case, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office detailed how Menendez “put his power up for sale” from 2018 to 2023, accepting gifts in exchange for coercing state and federal prosecutors in New Jersey to get his friends off the hook in their criminal cases, providing privileged information to associates in Cairo, pressuring officials in the U.S. government to help Hana maintain a monopoly over halal meat imports from Egypt and working to advance Qatari business interests.
Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was also charged in the case. On Monday, Judge Stein postponed her trial indefinitely. She was originally set to be tried with her husband and the co-defendants, but her trial had been pushed back to give her time to recover from breast cancer.
Another of the senator’s co-defendants, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty before the trial and testified as a witness for the government.
Following his September 2023 indictment, the influential lawmaker stepped down from his role as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. However, he refused to relinquish his seat in the Senate despite calls from top Democrats, including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. He announced he would run for reelection as an independent last month.
This trial was his second on corruption charges, with his first in 2017 ending in a hung jury.
“To those who were digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won’t forget you,” Menendez said in 2017.
Menendez was reelected for another six-year term in 2018 — the same time prosecutors allege he started accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from the three businessmen.
The Manhattan case against Menendez came after federal agents discovered more than $480,000 in cash stuffed in closets, jacket pockets, and old boots, along with more than $100,000 worth of gold bars during a 2022 raid on his Englewood Cliffs home, jurors heard during the trial.
Menendez vehemently maintained his innocence, with his defense team claiming the cash and gold bars were not bribe proceeds. His attorney, Adam Fee, sought to portray the government’s case as thin, describing it as “shaky and rotten to its core.”
“The United States of America wins when thin cases brought by overzealous prosecutors are rejected when the evidence isn’t there,” Fee said. “That will be a win for this country.”
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez depart a Manhattan court following an arraignment on new charges in the federal bribery case against them on March 11. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Lawyers for the scandal-plagued Democrat blamed his wife, alleging she deceived him about her poor financial situation and the help she sought from the businessmen.
During his summation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni pushed back on that idea, telling jurors, “You don’t get to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by being clueless.”
“This is a big case — but it all boils down to a classic case of corruption on a massive scale,” the prosecutor said.
With Molly Crane-Newman
