Trial begins for Nadine Menendez, wife of former US Sen. Bob Menendez
[March 19, 2025]
NEW YORK (AP) — Jury selection began Tuesday in the bribery trial
of Nadine Menendez, whose husband, former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, was
sentenced to 11 years in prison earlier this year for accepting hundreds
of thousands of dollars worth of gold and cash.
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Nadine Menendez, wife of former Sen. Bob Menendez, leaves Manhattan
federal court, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki
Iwamura) |
Nadine Menendez, 58, was originally scheduled to face trial last
year with the 71-year-old Democrat, but a breast cancer
diagnosis led to surgery that forced her trial to be delayed.
She has pleaded not guilty to charges that she participated in
the same bribery scheme that led to her husband's conviction.
Bob Menendez was convicted of taking bribes from three New
Jersey businessmen in return for a variety of favors, including
using his influence to help some of them in their dealings with
foreign governments. The senator was convicted of acting as a
foreign agent for the Egyptian government. He is scheduled to
report to prison on June 6.
The filing of charges against Bob Menendez in fall 2023 forced
him to surrender his powerful post as chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. He resigned as a senator after his
conviction.
Throughout the senator's two-month trial, Nadine Menendez was
mentioned repeatedly for her dealings with the businessmen. One
of them testified that he bought Nadine Menendez a luxury car
after the senator tried to get New Jersey prosecutors to drop a
criminal investigation involving one of his associates.
In 2022, FBI agents raided the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,
home where the couple lived, discovering over $100,000 in gold
bars and more than $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes in shoe
boxes, jackets and boots.
The then-senator maintained during his trial that the gold bars
belonged to his wife and that the cash resulted from his habit
of hoarding money because his parents fled Cuba in 1951 with
only the cash they had hidden in a grandfather clock.
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