NEW YORK (AP) — A prosecutor charged Senator Bob Menéndez on Tuesday for engaging in “extremely abnormal” behavior in response to bribes during a closing argument in the Democrat’s corruption trial in New York.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni made the charge as he continued a briefing he began a day earlier before a Manhattan federal court jury.
Menendez, 70, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted bribes, including gold and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, from 2018 to 2022, from three New Jersey businessmen who wanted his help in their business ventures.
His trial entered its ninth week on Monday. His lawyer was expected to begin closing arguments on behalf of the New Jersey senator later on Tuesday.
Menéndez is on trial with two of the businessmen – Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. Hana, who prosecutors say recruited Menendez to help him obtain and protect a monopoly on certifying U.S. meat exported to Egypt, and Daibes, an influential real estate developer, have also pleaded not guilty. A third businessman pleaded guilty and testified at the trial.
On Tuesday morning, Monteleoni highlighted what he described as an attempt by Menendez to influence the former New Jersey attorney general Gurbir Grewal in early 2019 to file a criminal case on behalf of one of the businessmen who paid bribes, with a false claim that investigators were discriminating against Hispanic truck drivers.
Grewal, now chief of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, testified during the trial that he firmly rejected Menendez’s efforts to intervene in criminal investigations, instructing him to tell a New Jersey defense attorney already involved in the case to file any complaints next to a judge. or the test team.
The encounters with Grewal were cited by Monteleoni as examples of things Menendez did that the prosecutor said “were extremely abnormal.”
“Menéndez is intelligent. Menendez is careful,” Monteleoni said, noting that the senator alleged discrimination in the trucking industry rather than directly calling for the closure of an investigation because he knew the latter would be wrong.
He said claiming discrimination gave Menendez the ability to deny it if someone accused him of trying to pressure the New Jersey attorney general to drop the investigation.
In reality, however, Menendez approached Grewal in exchange for a new Mercedes-Benz that the businessmen promised would be given to his then-girlfriend, Nadine Arslanian, who became his wife in the fall of 2020, Monteleoni said.
Nadine Menendez, 57, is also charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed while she recovers from breast cancer surgery.
Menendez resisted calls, even from some prominent Democrats, for him to resign, although he had to step down from his powerful role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the allegations were revealed last fall.
A few weeks ago, Menendez filed to run for re-election this year as an independent.
