NEW YORK (AP) — Nadine Menendez and her prison-bound husband — former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez — were “partners in crime,” a prosecutor told a jury Monday as opening statements began in her trial over allegations that the power couple accepted bribes of cash and gold bars.
The longtime senator was convicted last year of accepting bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from three New Jersey businessmen. Now, a new jury will hear similar evidence about Nadine Menendez, 58, after her trial was postponed when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said Nadine Menendez “did the dirty work” for the 71-year-old New Jersey Democrat, who is scheduled to report to prison in June to begin serving an 11-year sentence.
Defense attorney Barry Coburn told jurors they will have to exonerate Nadine Menendez because there will be an “absolute, utter failure of proof in this case.”
Nadine Menendez has pleaded not guilty to charges that she participated in the bribery scheme that resulted in her husband’s conviction.
“My wife, who had breast cancer reconstructive surgery just days ago, is being forced by the government to go to trial tomorrow,” Bob Menendez said last week on the social platform X before jury selection took place.
“Only the arrogance of the SDNY can be so cruel and inhumane,” Menendez added, referring to the Southern District of New York, where her trial is taking place. “They should let her fully recover!”
Prosecutors said the couple was bribed in return for a variety of favors, including using the senator’s influence to help some of them in their dealings with foreign governments. Menendez also was convicted of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt.
Menendez resigned from the Senate after his conviction. A judge delayed the start of his prison term until June 6 so he could attend his wife’s trial.
Throughout his two-month trial, Nadine Menendez was mentioned repeatedly for her dealings with the businessmen. One of them testified he bought her a luxury car after the senator tried to get New Jersey prosecutors to drop a criminal investigation involving one of his associates.
In 2022, FBI agents raided the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and found over $100,000 in gold bars and more than $480,000 cash stuffed in envelopes, shoeboxes, jackets and boots.
Bob Menendez said at trial that the gold belonged to his wife and the cash resulted from his habit of hoarding money after his parents fled Cuba in 1951 with only what they had hidden in a grandfather clock.
Menendez, who beat another corruption prosecution a decade ago, has aligned himself with Donald Trump’s criticisms of the judicial system, particularly in New York City, and tagged the president in his March 17 complaint on X.
“This process is political, and it’s corrupted to the core,” he told reporters after his sentencing. “I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.”
