Jurors ended their second day of deliberations Monday in the corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey with no verdict.
They ended their day around 4:40 p.m. after their first full day of deliberations in the trial, which is entering its 10th week in Manhattan Federal Court.
Menendez is accused of “putting his power up for sale” to three New Jersey businessmen by accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury convertible in exchange for working to influence criminal investigations, sending military aid to Egypt’s government and helping a friend maintain a halal exports monopoly.
The senator has pleaded not guilty to 16 felony charges, including bribery and obstruction. Two of the businessmen allegedly involved in the scheme, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, also pleaded not guilty, while a third, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty and testified against the defendants.
Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was also charged, but her trial has been pushed back at least until August.
Yuki Iwamura
Nadine Menendez, wife of Sen. Robert Menendez, leaves Manhattan Federal Court on March. 21. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
After his indictment, Robert Menendez, a longtime Democratic stalwart, stepped down from his powerful seat as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but refused to resign from the Senate, declaring that he would run for reelection as an independent.
Daibes, a real estate developer, is on trial for bribing Menendez to help him in a bank fraud case by finding a top prosecutor amenable to his side, according to the feds.
Lawyers for both sides spent around an hour in the afternoon arguing over how to respond to a question from the jury about which charges Menendez’s alleged attempted disruption of the criminal case falls under.
“Does intervening in the federal prosecution of Daibes in New Jersey fall under counts number 11 and 12 in the indictment?” the jury submitted in a written note.
After going back and forth on the verbiage, Manhattan Federal Judge Sidney Stein finally settled the matter, saying, “I’ve changed it slightly and this discussion is at its end.”
The jury also sent a note in the morning asking if it must all agree on every count.
“Does a not guilty verdict on a single count require unanimity?” the note read.
Stein responded that each decision “must be unanimous as to each count and to each defendant.”
Just after noon, as temperatures outside reached into the 90s, the six men and six women on the jury asked to take a 10-minute breather on the courthouse’s eighth-floor terrace. The judge approved the request.
Jurors were expected to resume deliberations Tuesday morning.
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