NEW YORK — The wife of former U.S. senator Bob Menendez was found guilty on Monday of helping her husband generate a steady flow of bribes and gifts that totaled about $1 million and included gold bars, cash and a luxury car.
Nadine Menendez, 58, was convicted of bribery, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit those crimes and related counts after a roughly month-long trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. She faces the possibility of decades in prison.
Federal prosecutors said Menendez was her husband’s partner in blatant corruption — that she arranged meetings, negotiated deals and collected payments from people seeking favors from the longtime Democratic lawmaker, while trying to cover their tracks because she knew that what they were doing was criminal.
“It all boils down to a classic case of corruption on a massive scale, helping a politician put his power up for sale,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni argued in his summation Thursday, calling Menendez “someone who knows what she’s doing is wrong and simply doesn’t care … because she wants to get paid.”
An attorney for Menendez told jurors that prosecutors failed to prove that she intended to get her husband to violate his duties as a U.S. lawmaker representing New Jersey. Her trial was delayed several times because of a breast cancer diagnosis and related treatments.
Menendez was paid for nonexistent employment by businessman Wael Hana, whose payoffs helped him secure a lucrative halal beef exporting agreement with the Egyptian government, with help from Bob Menendez. The couple also accepted bribes from Fred Daibes, a New Jersey developer, who got assistance with a real estate project in return. And they took gifts from Jose Uribe, who pleaded guilty to giving them a Mercedes-Benz and testified at their trials for the prosecution.
Bob Menendez, Hana and Daibes were convicted in July. The former senator was sentenced to 11 years in prison and is set to surrender in June. Hana and Daibes also received significant prison sentences, while Uribe is awaiting sentencing.
Daibes showered the couple with kilogram gold bars worth about $60,000 each and wads of cash, according to evidence presented at the Menendezes’ trials.
The couple married in 2020 and shared a home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., where the FBI found nearly $500,000 in cash and gold bars valued at nearly $350,000 in June 2022.
Bob Menendez, 71, became the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2021, a highly influential role that boosted his profile in Washington and around the globe. In that position, he committed to providing assistance to Egyptian officials in obtaining military aid.
The ex-senator was booted from his leadership position on the committee after he was indicted. But he resisted calls to resign from the Senate until his conviction.
After the jury returned its verdict against Nadine Menendez, acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky denounced the couple as “partners in crime.”
“Together, Nadine Menendez and the Senator placed their own interests and greed ahead of the interests of the citizens the Senator was elected to serve. Today’s verdict sends the clear message that the power of government officials may not be put up for sale, and that all those who facilitate corruption will be held accountable for their actions,” Podolsky said in a statement.
Barry Coburn, a lawyer for Nadine Menendez, said he was “devastated by the verdict.”
“But I want to emphasize that we respect the criminal justice system. We respect this court. We respect our judge, and we respect the jury for its hard work,” Coburn told reporters outside the courthouse. “Nonetheless, this is a very rough day for us. I have no doubt in my mind that the jury did what they thought was right, and I don’t think there’s any point to my standing here and debating any of that, and so I declined to do that. But the case is not over. There will be other days. And we look forward to it.”
