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MANHATTAN (CN) — New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez’s corruption trial continued in New York federal court Thursday with defense openings from two accused bribe payers, who both say their gifts to the powerful Democrat politician were indicia of affection, not quid pro quo bribe payments.
Menendez, the highest-ranking Latino in Congress, is standing trial in the Southern District of New York on federal bribery and corruption charges. Federal prosecutors say Menendez was involved in a five-year conspiracy to accept gold bars, luxury items, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for official political favors linked to the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Menendez’s two co-defendants in the trial, New Jersey businessman Wael Hana and real estate tycoon Fred Daibes, both insisted in their respective opening arguments that federal prosecutors will be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any items of value were exchanged for any political favors from the Cuban-American senator.
Hana’s attorney Lawrence Lustberg told jurors Thursday that the criminal charges against Hana are an example of “guilt by association” because of his longtime friendship with the senator’s wife, Nadine.
“Here, the acts at issue are innocent because, as you’ll see, there was never a time when Wael Hana provided things of value to Senator Menendez, or through his girlfriend — and later, wife Nadine — in exchange for an official action,” Lustberg said. “It just didn’t happen.”
Lustberg said Nadine Menendez and Hana cared for each other “like brother and sister,” which included a practice of gift-giving and fine dining that grew lopsided as Hana’s business endeavors became more successful.
“They supported each other emotionally and, at times, financially,” he said.
Prosecutors accuse Hana of hooking up Nadine with “a low-or-no-show job” at his halal meat certification firm IS EG Halal, paying her $10,000 per month. This occurred shortly after he secured a monopoly contract on the certification of halal meat imported from the United States into Egypt after Senator Menendez contacted a U.S. Department of Agriculture official on Hana’s behalf, prosecutors say.
Lustberg told jurors Hana had hired Nadine for a real job setting up international offices abroad for IS EG Halal but “she really wanted something for nothing,” so he fired her after three months.
According to Lustberg, U.S. officials had no involvement in the monopoly on certifying meat coming into Egypt. Instead, the Egyptian government made that decision and was eager at the time to oust Muslim Brotherhood loyalists and replace them with Hana, an adherent of the Egyptian Coptic Christian religious minority.
Prosecutors accuse Daibes, a millionaire real estate developer from Edgewater, New Jersey, of delivering gold bars and cash to the Menendezes in exchange for the senator’s efforts to install law enforcement officials for favorable interference with two criminal prosecutions in New Jersey.
Daibes also faces accusations he paid bribes to the senator to help him secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund by acting in ways favorable to Qatar’s government.
Daibes’ attorney Cesar De Castro echoed Hana’s strategy claiming that prosecutors will not be able to sufficiently prove a quid pro quo connection between gifts to Bob and Nadine Menendez and official acts by Senator Menendez.
“None of the quids – none of the things found in Nadine Menendez’s home – can be connected to any official acts of the senator, and that is fatal to government’s case,” he said. “Like every other part of the case, the government will need you to assume, presume, and infer about the quos that they’ve alleged.”
De Castro described Daibes as “a bit old school,” who has “lived the American dream,” often deals in cash, and collects luxury watches and gold bars.
During opening arguments Wednesday afternoon, Menendez’s attorney relied on a strategy of pinning culpability for receiving the cash and gifts on his wife Nadine.
“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,” attorney Avi Weitzman said.
Weitzman explained that the gold bars were kept in their home because of a “cultural” practice by Nadine Menendez, who grew up in a Lebanese household that kept gold for financial safety and to give as gifts.
Nadine Menendez, 58, was severed from her co-defendants’ May trial due to then-undisclosed health issues and will face a separate trial this summer.
On Thursday, Senator Menendez issued a statement disclosing that Nadine had been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer requiring mastectomy surgery.
“We are of course, concerned about the seriousness and advanced stage of the disease. She will require follow-up surgery and possibly radiation treatment,” the senator wrote. “We hope and pray for the best results. We ask the press and the public to give her the time, space and privacy to deal with this challenging health condition as she undergoes surgery and recovery.”
Menendez has held public office continuously since 1986, serving as a state legislator before 14 years as a U.S. congressman. In 2006, then-Governor Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.
While he quickly stepped down from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the indictment in September 2023, Menendez has repeatedly defied calls for his resignation, including from fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.
The bribery scandal is Menendez’s second set of corruption charges in a decade. He was indicted eight years prior in a similar scheme — involving accusations of peddling political influence to help Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen in exchange for luxury vacations in the Caribbean and Paris, flights on the eye doctor’s private jet and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to organizations that supported the senator — but a deadlocked jury ended that trial in 2017.
The first prosecution witness called Thursday morning was FBI special agent Aristotelis Kougemitros, who participated in the search of Bob and Nadine’s Englewood Cliffs home, where investigators found more than $400,000 in cash and 13 gold bars.
The trial is expected to run up to seven weeks until the end of June.
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