A luxury car for bullying the A.G.? Menendez jurors hear about a deal to ‘kill all investigation’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 2: New Jersey businessman Jose Uribe, 56, arrives at Manhattan court after being indicted on bribery charges in conjunction with Senator Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez on October 2, 2023 in New York City. Menendez and his wife are accused of taking bribes of gold bars, a luxury car and cash in exchange for using Menendez's position to help the government of Egypt and other corrupt acts according to an indictment from SDNY unsealed on Friday. The indictment is the second in eight years against Menendez. The indictment also includes charges for Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Four weeks into Sen. Bob Menendez’s federal corruption trial in Manhattan, jurors have heard barely a peep about the co-defendant who pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against him.

That changed Wednesday, when prosecutors spent the day explaining failed insurance broker Jose Uribe’s role in what they call a many-tentacled bribery scheme, laying the foundation for former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to testify Thursday.

Prosecutors say Menendez, New Jersey’s senior senator, called and met with Grewal several times in 2019 in a bid to stop a state insurance fraud investigation and prosecution into Uribe’s friends.

In exchange, Uribe hosted a July 2018 fundraiser for the senator in Cliffside Park and spent tens of thousands of dollars on a new Mercedes-Benz convertible for the senator’s wife, Nadine, who needed a car to replace one she totaled in December 2018, according to testimony Wednesday.

“The deal is to kill and stop all investigation,” Uribe texted his friend Wael Hana, who prosecutors said connected him with the couple.

The senator’s alleged attempt to strong-arm Grewal didn’t work — trucking company owner Elvis Parra, who was scheduled to stand trial in April 2019 for bilking nearly $389,000 from an insurance carrier, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and got sentenced to probation.

Yet Uribe, who covered the $15,000 down payment on the $67,000-plus Mercedes, continued paying monthly bills on the car — to the tune of about $30,000 — until FBI agents searched the Menendezes’ home in June 2022 as part of their corruption probe.

“The car is home,” Nadine Menendez texted the senator after signing paperwork for it at the dealership on April 5, 2019.

“Woopy!!!” the senator texted back.

To Uribe, she texted: “You are a miracle worker who makes dreams come true. I will always remember that.”

Prosecutor Paul Monteleoni methodically presented hundreds of texts, emails, calls, and other documents Wednesday, through questioning FBI Special Agent Rachel Graves, that showed Uribe began texting Nadine Menendez so frequently for access to the senator that within months, she called him “family.”

“I will not let you down. You are family,” Nadine Menendez assured Uribe by text when it appeared the state investigation was proceeding.

The senator called Grewal in early September 2019 and two days later met him and Andrew Bruck in a meeting that was conspicuously missing from his official Senate calendar, testimony showed. Bruck was Grewal’s executive assistant attorney general and briefly succeeded him when Grewal left in July 2021 to become director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of enforcement.

After that meeting, the senator texted his wife: “Done.” Uribe later texted a friend and told him that he met with Menendez — whom he called “the Amigo” — at his apartment after the Grewal meeting, and the senator reported feeling “very positive” about it, testimony showed.

In a day of a dizzying amount of exhibits, prosecutors continued trying to dismantle defense attorneys’ claim that Menendez didn’t know much of what his wife did, showing text exchanges both banal and suggestive that he was well-aware of her doings. They also have repeatedly referred to his frequent use of a Find My Friends tracking app to check on his wife’s whereabouts.

Wednesday’s testimony revealed other tantalizing tidbits that promise to make Nadine Menendez’s trial interesting. She’s not set to be tried until at least July, after Judge Sidney H. Stein granted her request for a delay so she could get needed medical treatment.

Texts showed that Nadine Menendez had a flip phone she used for sensitive communications that she called her “007 cell number.” On her loan application for the Mercedes, she said she was “self-employed,” listed her occupation as “vice president,” and reported an income of $197,000.

The December 12, 2018, night she totaled her Mercedes, she was on her way to see Rosemarie Sorce, the wife of a real estate developer and a Menendez donor, according to testimony.

She texted Sorce at 7:28 p.m. that she had hit detours and was just a few miles away — and six minutes later, texted again: “911 call me.”

“I’m sitting in an ambulance,” she texted Sorce 20 minutes later.

Police have said the collision happened at 7:35 p.m.

Nadine Menendez had hit and killed a jaywalking pedestrian in Bogota. Police did not ticket her or test her for intoxication, and she was not charged. Jurors will not hear those details, which Stein deemed prejudicial.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Besides Grewal, prosecutors told Stein they also expect to call an FBI agent who’s a fingerprint analyst.

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