MANHATTAN (CN) — New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez received bribes from businessmen with ties to the Qatari royal family, federal prosecutors said in a new set of corruption charges unsealed Tuesday afternoon, which expanded the Democrat politician’s bribery allegations beyond a previously-charged scheme to accept bribes for benefits to Egyptian interests.
In a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday, Menendez is accused of his wielding his influence and power as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in connection with member of the Qatari royal family for the benefit of New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes — who is also named as a co-defendant — in exchange for items of value received by him and his wife Nadine, including luxury wristwatches, Formula 1 Grand Prix race tickets, cash, and gold bars.
According to prosecutors, Menendez made multiple public statements that stated support for the Government of Qatar while Daibes was concurrently seeking a multimillion-dollar investment from the Qataris in connection with a New Jersey real estate project.
“Menendez agreed to and did accept payment from Daibes, knowing that Daibes expected Menendez in exchange to use his influence and power and breach his official duty to assist Daibes, who was seeking millions of dollars in investment from a fund with ties to the Government of Qatar, by performing acts to benefit the Government of Qatar,” federal prosecutors said in the superseding indictment.
According to prosecutors, Daibes offered Menendez the luxury wristwatches in an encrypted messaging application one week after they attended a private event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government.
"How about one of these," the indictment quoted Daibes asking in a message he sent to Menendez along with photos of the watches displayed on a desktop computer.
The watches Daibes offered were valued between $10,000 and $24,000, according to the superseding indictment.
The next month, one day after Bob and Nadine Menendez returned home to New Jersey from a trip to Qatar and Egypt in October 2021, the senator performed a web search for "how much is one kilo of gold worth,” according to federal prosecutors.
The following May, Daibes gave Menendez “at least one gold bar” after the Qatari Investment Company signed a letter of intent to enter into a joint venture with Daibes, the indictment states.
Three days after the signing of the letter of intent for the Qatari investment company's investment with Daibes, on or about May 26, 2022, both Bob and Nadine Menendez met with Daibes for dinner in Edgewater, New Jersey, and later that evening, Bob Menendez again inquired online for the current price of "one kilo gold.”
Menedez continued to receive kickbacks from the Qataris after the deal was inked in 2023, including four tickets for the 2023 Formula One Grand Prix race held in Miami that were given to Nadine at Bob’s request, prosecutors charge.
An FBI search of the Menendez’s New Jersey home last year uncovered and led to the seizure of over $100,000 of solid gold bars and about $480,000 in cash.
Menendez was initially charged in a grand jury indictment in the Southern District of New York in September 2023, which accused the senator and his wife taking hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of bribes — including “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value” — in exchange for his political influence.
Prosecutors filed additional counts a month later that charged Menendez with illegally acting as a foreign agent by secretly feeding sensitive U.S. government information to officials in Egypt.
Bob Menendez, Nadine Menendez and Fred Daibes have all pleaded not guilty to all federal charges filed since September.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein, a Bill Clinton appointee from Passaic, New Jersey.
While he quickly stepped down from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September, 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. The lawmaker in 2015 was indicted 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 hung jury ended his trial two years later.
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