NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife was excused Wednesday from appearing in court next week after her lawyer said she was experiencing severe, chronic pain following surgery to treat cancer.
Nadine Menendez was supposed to be on trial for the Democrat last month, but her trial was delayed until at least July after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She was scheduled to appear at a pretrial hearing next Wednesday in Manhattan federal court before her attorney, Barry Coburn, asked that her appearance be waived following her recent “invasive cancer surgery.”
Coburn wrote that she has “medical equipment implanted in her body and is in severe, chronic pain.”
In an order later in the day, Judge Sidney H. Stein said he may skip the hearing.
Menendez, 70, and his wife, 57, pleaded not guilty to helping three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for bribes in the form of gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a car.
Much of the evidence presented to jurors since the trial began four weeks ago has focused on Nadine Menéndez’s communications with businesspeople and the senator through hundreds of emails, text messages and phone calls.
Prosecutors showed Wednesday that her communications with different individuals often occurred seconds or minutes apart as she juggled conversations with the businessmen and Menendez, such as when money was provided by one of the businessmen to finance a Mercedes-Benz. in 2019.
Two of the businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are on trial before the senator, while a third businessman has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify later in the trial.
The Menendez couple began dating in early 2018 and married in 2020, when the senator moved into his wife’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
On Monday, Menendez filed for re-election as an independent. If victorious, it would be his fourth term as senator.
He insisted that everything he did on behalf of businesspeople was part of the work any elected official does on behalf of voters.
Prosecutors, however, told a jury that Menendez tried to sell his position to enrich himself, helping Hana obtain a lucrative monopoly on certifying meat exports to Egypt as meeting Islamic guidelines and assisting Daibes with investments linked to a family member real of Qatar. .
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
