Federal prosecutors hit Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with new criminal charges on Tuesday, alleging they obstructed justice in hopes of concealing a bribery scheme.
Mr. Menendez and his wife were originally indicted in September for conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion.
Appearing in the U.S. District Court for New York’s southern district on Tuesday, federal prosecutors brought a new superseding indictment raising additional counts against the senator and his wife for conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Tuesday’s superseding indictment marks the third time federal prosecutors have brought charges in addition to those they originally announced in September. Other superseding indictments were announced on Oct. 12 and Jan. 2.
Prosecutors have previously alleged Mr. and Mrs. Menendez accepted bribes from three New Jersey businessmen also charged in the case: Jose Uribe, Wael Hana, and Fred Daibes.
The bribes allegedly included mortgage payments, gold bars, and a convertible Mercedes-Benz C-300 luxury car. In turn, the Senator allegedly worked to benefit the New Jersey businessmen, including with business interests in Egypt. Prosecutors say Mr. Menendez intervened in a New Jersey state criminal case involving one of Mr. Uribe’s associates and a federal investigation into Mr. Daibes.
Prosecutors also allege Mr. Menendez worked to help Mr. Hana maintain a monopolistic venture as the sole certifier of Halal status for U.S. goods going to Egypt through his entity IS EG Halal Certified, Inc. Specifically, Mr. Menendez allegedly pressured the U.S. Department of Agriculture to avoid challenging IS EG Halal’s monopolistic status.
With the latest superseding indictment, Mr. Menendez faces counts in the New York federal court for conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, conspiracy to commit honest wire fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion, extortion, conspiracy for a public official to act as a foreign agent, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice.
Obstruction Charges Detailed
In their previous superseding indictment, federal prosecutors described an effort by the New Jersey senator and his wife to conceal some of the bribes they allegedly took by repaying the other defendants in the case. That Jan. 2 indictment stated that the husband-and-wife couple took these actions after a federal grand jury issued subpoenas against all five defendants in June 2022. The latest indictment filed on Tuesday uses this alleged repayment scheme as the basis for charging Mr. Menendez and his wife with obstruction of justice.
The June 2022 subpoenas specifically asked Mr. Uribe for documents regarding payments he made for the Mercedes-Benz convertible and for Mr. Hana’s halal food business made in July 2019 to cover the mortgage payment on a home owned by Mrs. Menendez.
On or about December 2022, Mr. Menendez wrote a check for $23,569 with a memo line reading “To liquidate loan.” Another December 2022 check for $23,568.54 bore the memo “Full payment of Wael Hana loan” along with a handwritten letter that stated, in part, that the check was “in full payment of a personal loan” Mr. Hana gave to Mrs. Menendez.
Prosecutors say Mr. and Mrs. Menendez also sought to repay Mr. Uribe for some, but not all of the money he used to pay for the Mercedes-Benz.
Beyond repaying these alleged bribes, Mr. and Mrs. Menendez caused their then-attorneys to provide false representations to prosecutors about the payments. In or about June 2023 and September 2023, Mr. Menendez’s lawyer allegedly told prosecutors their client had been unaware until 2022 of the $23,568.54 that Mr. Hana had made to cover his wife’s mortgage or the payments Mr. Uribe made toward his wife’s Mercedes-Benz.
Prosecutors say Mr. and Mrs. Mendenez’s lawyers also insisted that Mr. Uribe and Mr. Hana’s payments were for personal loans.
NTD News reached out to the attorneys currently representing Mr. Menendez for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
The Tuesday indictment comes as Mr. Uribe’s lawyers filed a waiver of indictment on Friday and announced he would plead guilty to counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, attempt and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, attempted tax evasion, and obstructing justice by making false and misleading statements to federal investigators.
Mr. Menendez has insisted on his innocence throughout the case.
“Those who believe in justice believe in innocence until proven guilty,” Mr. Menendez said after the charges were announced in September. Mr. Menendez insisted he would “continue to fight for the people of New Jersey with the same success” he’s had throughout his political career, spanning local, state, and federal offices.
The New Jersey Democrat stepped down from his position as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shortly after the charges were announced but has rebuffed calls for his resignation over charges he characterized as a “smear campaign.”
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein rejected a motion filed by Mr. Menendez’s legal team, arguing that search warrants that preceded the criminal charges against the New Jersey lawmaker were unconstitutional because they were “riddled with material misrepresentation and omissions that deceived the authorizing magistrate judge.”
Mrs. Menendez, Mr. Hana, and Mr. Daibes have also pled not guilty.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
