NEW YORK — After sitting via 30 prosecution witnesses testifying at his federal corruption trial, Sen. Bob Menendez known as on household and forensic accountants this week as his attorneys made the case that the New Jersey Democrat took no bribes from rich businessmen and that his Cuban-refugee dad and mom taught him to stash bundles of cash at residence.
Menendez, the previous chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, who’s accused of appearing as a overseas agent for Egypt, declined Wednesday to take the witness stand in his personal protection. Closing arguments within the case are anticipated to start Monday.
5 folks — his sister, sister-in-law, a outstanding New Jersey lawyer and two forensic accountants — testified on his behalf. One accountant advised the jury that Menendez withdrew money from a credit score union account in increments of round $400 on greater than 300 events throughout a 14-year stretch.
“Daddy at all times mentioned don’t belief the banks,” the lawmaker’s sister, Caridad Gonzalez, advised jurors because the protection’s preliminary witness. Their father, mom and aunt, she recalled, all had a behavior of storing money round the home after the household fled persecution in Cuba in 1951, earlier than Menendez was born in New York.
It grew to become a part of the household lore, Gonzalez testified, and Menendez has been maintaining money at residence since no less than the Eighties. Federal prosecutors mentioned the FBI seized greater than $486,000 in bribes from his home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., throughout a court-authorized search in June 2022.
“He doesn’t take money for something,” Gonzalez mentioned in a testy second underneath cross-examination, denying that her “child brother” would have accepted bribes from businessmen with ties to Egypt and Qatar. His motivation for holding public workplace? “He does it as a result of that’s what he does; he serves folks,” she mentioned.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan concluded their case Friday after seven weeks. They narrated emails, pictures, textual content messages, voicemails, financial institution information and different items of proof linking each Menendez and his spouse, the previous Nadine Arslanian, to businessmen who have been looking for the lawmaker’s assist lining up offers with Egyptian and Qatari officers or hoping to have Menendez quash a number of felony investigations by authorities in New Jersey.
Menendez is charged with bribery, extortion, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and appearing as a overseas agent for Egypt. He may spend the remainder of his life in jail if convicted on all counts. He and the 2 New Jersey businessmen on trial with him, Fred Daibes and Wael “Will” Hana, have pleaded not responsible. Nadine Menendez additionally has pleaded not responsible and is scheduled to be tried later.
On Wednesday, the senator advised U.S. District Decide Sidney H. Stein that he had determined to not testify after mulling it over “at size” along with his attorneys. Later within the afternoon, he elaborated briefly exterior the courthouse.
“From my perspective, the federal government has did not show each side of its case,” Menendez advised reporters.
His attorneys argue that he was damaged up with Arslanian for a part of 2018 after discovering she was nonetheless seeing an ex-boyfriend. They are saying the couple couldn’t have been working a bribery scheme throughout that pause of their romance.
However prosecutors contend the 2 have been onerous at work starting in early 2018 and persevering with via 2022, assembly with Egyptian intelligence officers and aiding them with coverage priorities in Congress whereas anticipating that Hana would settle the invoice in a while with bribes.
Protection legal professional Avi Weitzman portrayed the ex-boyfriend as controlling and ever-present in Arslanian’s life, even after the senator entered the image. A witness testified that Arslanian obtained a brief restraining order towards him in Could 2018, months after she started courting Menendez.
“I fear about your security and well-being,” Menendez wrote to her in a 2018 textual content message. “My disappointment, nonetheless, doesn’t change my love for you. You’re the love of my life and hopefully we are able to dwell in peace and happiness the remainder of our lives.”
At one level the choose complained that the protection was turning the trial right into a “dangerous cleaning soap opera.” The ex-boyfriend, lawyer Doug Anton, has mentioned Nadine Menendez’s accusations towards him are false.
Katia Tabourian, who’s Nadine Menendez’s youthful sister, testified Monday that it was not unusual inside their household — which has roots in Armenia, Cyprus and Lebanon — to offer gold, jewellery and money as items. Nadine Menendez inherited their grandmother’s gold bars and was additionally given gold by their father, Tabourian mentioned.
The Menendezes married within the fall of 2020. Prosecutors allege that Nadine had money and gold bars from Daibes and Hana in her bed room closet when the FBI search passed off.
Below cross-examination by prosecutors, Gonzalez and Tabourian mentioned they have been near Menendez and didn’t need to see him in bother. The senator’s daughter, MSNBC anchor Alicia Menendez, sat within the entrance row of the courtroom gallery as Gonzalez testified. Afterward, the 2 girls embraced and walked collectively out of the courtroom, adopted by a beaming Menendez.
The trial is breaking for Independence Day and can resume Monday.
