Sen. Bob Menendez trial takes week-long break after jurors get stuck in elevator

NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez’s trial took a week-long break Tuesday after federal court jurors who were treated to a brick-by-brick construction of the prosecutor’s bribery case were trapped in an elevator a day after being forced to leave their usual meeting room. because of the floods.

Judge Sidney H. Stein said jurors were trapped in an elevator for several minutes during what was supposed to be a 10-minute break in the late afternoon that lasted nearly half an hour.

The elevator breakdown occurred when jurors were transported between floors to a meeting room because the carpet in their usual meeting room outside the courthouse was soaked on Monday after someone left the sink taps running at the end. of the week. As the jurors left, Stein humorously warned them, “Don’t all get in the same elevator.”

The accident occurred on a day when prosecutors tried to slowly build their case against the Democrat with evidence they hoped would win points with jurors against Menendez and his two co-defendants — two New Jersey businessmen who the government says paid him bribes consisting of gold bars. , hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a car.

Lawyers for Menéndez, 70, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and the businessmen say their clients are not guilty and that the government is trying to turn ordinary interactions between a politician and his constituents into crimes.

Among Tuesday’s witnesses was a man who worked for the State Department during the years prosecutors say Menendez used his powerful position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to do favors for Egypt in order to keep the flow of bribes under control.

Joshua Paul, who now works as a consultant for a nonprofit organization, testified that the committee and its chairman have extraordinary powers over the State Department because he controls its leadership, dictates how it operates and confirms ambassadors around the world.

After his arrest last fall, Menéndez was forced to resign from his post, although he resisted calls for him to leave the Senate.

Prosecutors say Menendez did things to benefit Egyptian authorities so he could receive bribes in exchange for paving the way for a co-defendant to secure a lucrative monopoly to certify that meat exported to Egypt from U.S. slaughterhouses met requirements. Islamic dietetics.

In addition to bribery, extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice, Menéndez is also accused of acting as a foreign agent for Egypt.