MANHATTAN (CN) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday brought additional charges against Senator Robert Menendez, the embattled New Jersey Democrat accused of a far-reaching bribery scheme involving foreign governments.
A new superseding indictment brings the number of criminal counts Menendez faces to 16, all related to accusations the senator accepted lavish bribes and gifts to benefit the Egyptian and Qatari governments, as well as individual businessmen in New Jersey.
The new indictment comes just days after one of those businessmen, Jose Uribe, formerly a co-defendant in this case, pleaded guilty to bribing Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz convertible. On March 1, Uribe entered a guilty plea and admitted he lied to federal prosecutors when he told them that the payments he made toward that car were actually for loans.
Those car payments appeared to be mentioned in the fresh batch of charges on Tuesday.
According to the indictment, the senator wrote his wife Nadine Menendez a check in 2022 for $23,000 with the memo line “for car payment.” But when Nadine Menendez exchanged that same money with Uribe and another defendant, those checks were labeled as loan repayments.
Uribe agreed to cooperate with federal authorities when he pleaded guilty. The senator, his wife and their two remaining co-defendants — also New Jersey businessmen — pleaded not guilty to earlier charges.
Menendez was charged this past September after investigators raided his home and seized gold bars and around $480,000 in cash, much of it stuffed in envelopes in the senator’s clothing.
The 70-year-old has now been hit with several superseding indictments since the initial complaint, however.
Previously, Menendez faced four counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, and conspiracy for a public official to act as a foreign agent. Tuesday’s new charges tacked on a dozen counts, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, bribery and extortion.
Prosecutors claim Menendez took bribes from Egyptian and Qatari officials to influence U.S. foreign policy. In one instance, Menendez told his wife he was going to “sign off” on a $99 million sale to the Egyptian military and she passed along the information to Egyptian government officials, according to court documents.
In another, investigators claim Menendez used his influence to boost the Qatari government in connection with a New Jersey real estate project.
Menendez is also accused of trying to help New Jersey businessmen, including Uribe, skirt criminal probes and prosecution. To do so, prosecutors claim Menendez tried to influence President Joe Biden’s nomination for the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
They say that effort was unsuccessful, however.
“Fortunately, the public officials the senator sought to influence did not bend to the pressure. That’s a good thing,” Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement following last year’s indictment.
Since the September indictment, Menendez has bucked calls to resign despite members of his own party, including fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, advising him to step aside.
“As Senator Menendez prepares to mount his legal defense, he has stated that he will not resign,” Booker said in a statement last year. “Senator Menendez fiercely asserts his innocence and it is therefore understandable that he believes stepping down is patently unfair. But I believe this is a mistake.”
Menendez has remained steadfast, however. He went as far as to blast his critics during a speech on the Senate floor in January.
“For the administration, the political establishment and for my detractors, it would be much easier to have me exit the scene,” Menendez said. “But I will not step aside and allow these things to happen in the name of political expediency.”
Menendez has been accused of similar offenses in the past. He was previously charged for accepting gifts from a wealthy eye doctor, but the trial ended with a hung jury in 2017.
Up for reelection this year, Menendez still hasn’t said whether he'll run. His trial is slated to start on May 6.
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