Jury in Bob Menendez bribery trial will hear of money and gold bars ‘stuffed in safes and jackets’ | EUROtoday

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A jury in Senator Bob Menendez’s bribery trial will hear about money and gold that was discovered “stuffed in pockets, in a safe, in jackets” at his house, a decide dominated on Monday.

The choice was made on Monday at a remaining pretrial convention within the bribery and conspiracy case towards the New Jersey Democrat, in accordance with Law360.

Mr Menendez, 70, and his spouse, Nadine, have been charged final September over allegedly accepting items together with money, gold bars and a luxurious automotive in change for the senator’s affect to counterpoint three New Jersey businessmen and profit the Egyptian authorities.

The couple, who’re being tried individually, have each pleaded not responsible to the costs.

Authorities seized $100,000 in gold bars and greater than $480,000 money, largely stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothes, closets, and a protected at their house, in accordance with a federal indictment. Photographs within the indictment reveal jackets, bearing Mr Menendez’s title and authorities seals, full of payments.

His trial is scheduled to start on 13 May in Manhattan whereas his spouse’s trial was postponed till July for well being causes.

Prosecutors say businessman Wael Hana had organized conferences between Mr Menendez and Egyptian officers, who pressed the senator to log out on navy support. In return, Mr Hana put Ms Menendez on the payroll of an organization he managed, prosecutors alleged.

Mr Menendez, who has been a senator since 2006, chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2013 to 2015, and from 2021 till September 2023 when he was compelled to step down. He remains to be a sitting senator however will not be working for re-election in New Jersey.

The senator and his spouse are additionally accused of making an attempt to “cover-up” the bribery scheme by utilizing a number of the cash to pay for a Mercedes-Benz and residential mortgage funds.

Following the legal expenses associated to Egypt, the couple was slapped with two superseding indictments in October referring to an alleged scheme involving Qatar.

Last month, Judge Sidney Stein ordered separate trials for Mr and Ms Menendez following information that she had fallen unwell, would require surgical procedure after which weeks of restoration.

Court paperwork revealed that legal professionals for Mr Menendez additionally requested that the senator and his spouse be tried individually as a result of he “intends to present a defence arguing (in part) that he lacked the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife, Nadine”.

“By this defense, Senator Menendez’s legal team may have to argue, in effect, that any unlawful conduct — and we are aware of none —involved the actions of others (including Nadine), not the Senator,” his legal professionals wrote.

His authorized group argued that the senator would face a “Catch-22” state of affairs if he’s tried alongside his spouse. According to the legal professionals, a joint trial would “force Senator Menendez to make an impossible and prejudicial choice between testifying on his own behalf and exercising his spousal privilege to avoid being converted through cross-examination into a witness against his spouse”.

In a separate movement, legal professionals for Ms Menendez made the same argument.

Her legal professionals argued a joint trial would probably display an “irreconcilable conflict between husband and wife” and that it might be “unfair to require either spouse to sacrifice the right to testify fully in one’s own defence or the ability to maintain the confidentiality of privileged marital communications”.