Menendez allegedly aided Qatar in exchange for payments, updated indictment says

An updated federal indictment was filed against Sen. Bob Menendez on Tuesday alleging that he accepted payments from notable North Jersey developer Fred Daibes in exchange for using his power and influence to help Daibes with a business deal in Qatar.

The updated indictment alleges that the now-infamous gold bars found in Menendez’s Englewood Cliffs home were payment for helping Daibes get a Qatari investment company with ties to that country’s government to invest in a Daibes property by doing things that were viewed as favorable to the government of Qatar.

In June 2021, Menendez allegedly introduced Daibes to an investor who was a member of the Qatari royal family and the principal of the firm, who then negotiated a multimillion-dollar investment in one of Daibes' New Jersey real estate properties.

During those negotiations, Menendez allegedly made public statements supporting the government of Qatar, and after attending a private event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government, Daibes sent Menendez a picture of a luxury watch website with models priced up to $23,990 and asked, “How about one of these,” before messaging the senator again two days later about a Senate resolution in support of Qatar.

While the Qatari firm was considering that potential investment, Menendez “made multiple public statements supporting the government of Qatar,” the indictment says.

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Menendez would give statements to Daibes so he could share them with the Qatari investor and a Qatari government official associated with the investment firm, the indictment says.

For instance, on Aug. 21, 2021, Menendez used an encrypted messaging app to send Daibes the text of a press release in which “Menendez praised the government of Qatar,” and several minutes later used the app to text Daibes, “You might want to send to them. I am just about to release,” the indictment says.

In a press release dated Aug. 21, 2021, on Menendez’s website, he indeed praised Qatar’s efforts to help house Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants, refugees and other at-risk groups seeking refuge in the United States.

“I am grateful to see our friends and allies in Qatar be moral exemplars by accepting Afghans ultimately seeking safe haven in the U.S. after being forced to escape for their lives,” Menendez said in the release.

Adam Fee, an attorney for Menendez, said the new allegations “stink of desperation.”

“Despite what they’ve touted in press releases, the government does not have the proof to back up any of the old or new allegations against Senator Menendez,” Fee said in a statement. “What they have instead is a string of baseless assumptions and bizarre conjectures based on routine, lawful contacts between a senator and his constituents or foreign officials.”

Fee went on to say Menendez “acted entirely appropriately with respect to Qatar, Egypt, and the many other countries he routinely interacts with” and that those interactions were “always based on his professional judgment as to the best interests of the United States because he is, and always has been, a patriot.”

Daibes' lawyer declined to comment.

Formula One Grand Prix tickets

The indictment also alleges that after an October 2021 trip to Qatar and Egypt with his wife and co-defendant Nadine Arslanian Menendez, the senator was picked up from the airport by Daibes’ driver, and that he later searched online for “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”

In addition, in May 2022 and again in 2023, a close relative of Arslanian received tickets to the 2022 Formula One Grand Prix in Miami from a Qatari official.

According to the indictment, after Daibes and the Qatari investment company entered a business agreement, Menendez, Arslanian and Daibes had dinner together in Edgewater. Later that night, Menendez allegedly searched for “one kilo gold price.”

More: Future of massive North Jersey towers uncertain amid toxic cleanup, Menendez investigation

A letter filed by Damian Williams with the U.S. Attorney's Office says the updated indictment does not add any new charges but rather "expands the timeframe of the bribery and extortion conspiracy to include 2023 and provides additional factual detail."

Superfund site in Edgewater

The deal between the Qatari investment company and Daibes that is mentioned in the indictment appears to be centered on the Quanta Resources Superfund site in Edgewater, where Daibes had grand plans to build one of the largest and tallest retail complexes in New Jersey.

Daibes bought three plots of land more than a decade ago that make up the property — a toxic site in a onetime industrial hub that is now surrounded by high-end condominiums and shops with spectacular views of the Hudson River and Manhattan.

He paid $42.25 million for the land, and the latest plans called for four towers climbing 720 feet high with 2,000 residential units, a parking garage and a clubhouse, according to a permit filed with the state.

But the site was extremely contaminated, having been home to a coal-tar manufacturing plant and a waste oil disposal facility for more than a century.

The property has sat barren for years as cleanup efforts by Honeywell, which inherited the liability for the property, moved along slowly.

The cleanup experienced a setback when NorthJersey.com reported that high levels of pollutants were being emitted during the cleanup, raising concerns among nearby residents. Honeywell erected large structures on the site to contain the fumes.

The delays caused Daibes' onetime partner on the site — Hongkun USA, a global real estate company — to pull out of the deal, said a letter from a Daibes lawyer to a judge in December.

The letter asked the judge to allow Daibes — awaiting sentencing in a separate bank charge case — to visit Qatar to pitch another investor, Heritage Advisors of London, an investment management firm founded by Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani of Qatar.

The investment firm subsequently bought a 23.7% share of the Quanta site and adjoining properties for $45 million, records show.

The site is still not ready for development. A $163 million plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up pollution that seeped from the property into the Hudson River was unveiled in July but is likely years away from starting.

The rest of the charges

Menendez was first indicted in this case last fall and faces corruption charges, brought by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, for allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three businessmen in exchange for helping them enrich themselves and trying to get them out of trouble, said an indictment initially unsealed on Sept. 22 in New York.

The senior senator and the other four defendants — his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, and businessmen Wael Hana, Daibes and Jose Uribe — have all entered not guilty pleas.

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The indictment alleges that between 2018 and 2022, Menendez and his wife “engaged in a corrupt relationship with Hana, Uribe and Daibes” to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for Menendez using his “power and influence to protect, to enrich those businessmen and to benefit the government of Egypt” even as he sat as chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Bribes allegedly included cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low- or no-show job and a Mercedes-Benz — much of which is detailed in photographs in the 50-page indictment.

Menendez is up for reelection this fall, and to secure his spot on the ballot, he will need to win the primary on June 4, likely around the time of closing arguments in the case if the trial date stands.

Rep. Andy Kim and first lady Tammy Murphy have announced that they will run in the Democratic primary for the seat.

In December, Menendez's attorneys requested that his trial be delayed by two months — from May 6 until July, after the primary election in which his Senate seat will be on the ballot — because of the amount of discovery submitted by the government, but the request was denied.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Sen. Bob Menendez faces charge he helped Qatar for payments