Prosecution rests in federal bribery trial of Sen. Menendez

Sen. Bob Menendez leaves the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse in Manhattan on Monday, May 20, 2024, where his corruption trial entered its second week. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan rested their corruption case against Sen. Bob Menendez Friday, capping seven weeks of testimony with a forensic accountant who tied almost $350,000 in cash and gold bars to the senator, his wife, and two co-defendants accused of bribing them.

Defense attorneys will begin presenting their case Monday morning, and they have indicated they will argue that New Jersey’s senior senator stashed cash at home over decades as a coping mechanism for past trauma, has very generous friends who give very nice gifts, and didn’t know that his wife took money from or cut deals with people.

They said they’ll show more benign explanations for seemingly suspicious things prosecutors have presented in court, like Nadine Menendez’s second phone she called her “007 cell number” and the senator’s habit of tracking her every move through a phone app. They aim to call witnesses who are expected to tell jurors the second phone and tracking were protections against an abusive ex-boyfriend she couldn’t shake.

“The government hasn’t proven its case,” Menendez told reporters outside court after Friday’s testimony ended.

Friday, prosecutors called their final witness, whose testimony seemed designed to preempt some of those defense arguments.

FBI forensic accountant Megan Rafferty led jurors through financial documents that showed about $117,000 of the $552,000 the FBI seized when they searched the couple’s Englewood Cliffs home and Nadine Menendez’s safe deposit box on June 16, 2022, were bills that entered circulation after 2018. That means they were not hoarded decades ago, as the defense contends.

Rafferty also testified that investigators linked 10 envelopes packed with $82,500 in cash that investigators found during those searches to co-defendant Fred Daibes, an Edgewater real estate developer and bank founder, through fingerprints and DNA.

Investigators also seized about a dozen gold bars, worth $253,165, with serial numbers investigators later traced to Daibes, she told jurors.

She also explained a much fuzzier gold-bar link between Nadine Menendez and co-defendant Wael Hana, saying $12,878 in gold bars found in the couple’s home or in photos on Nadine’s phone came from the same manufacturer boxes as 22 bars Hana bought in June 2021 from an Edgewater jeweler both used. Nadine Menendez had sold almost $250,000 worth of gold just a few months before the FBI searches to the jeweler — who didn’t document their serial numbers, making it impossible for prosecutors to prove with certainty where she got them, previous testimony showed.

In a ruling outside of jurors’ earshot, Judge Sidney H. Stein rejected a request by Daibes’ attorney to call witnesses who would have testified that generosity was a habit and character trait of his.

A habit, Stein told defense attorneys, is setting your alarm clock or punching in to work at the same time daily.

“Generosity is not a habit,” he said.

Prosecutor Paul Monteleoni also presented for the court record several press releases Menendez’s office and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chaired until his September indictment, released in 2020 and 2022 that blasted former Rep. David Rivera (R-Florida) for his connections to Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. Menendez called for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Rivera for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by failing to register as a foreign agent for Venezuela.

Menendez himself is now charged as acting as a foreign agent, a charge he denies, because of meetings he had and information he shared with Egyptian officials in what prosecutors say was an effort to help his friend Hana secure a monopoly on exporting halal beef there.

The courtroom at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse was packed Friday with observers eager to hear the final day of prosecutors’ case. Among those in attendance were about 15 evangelical Hispanic clergy from New Jersey representing the nonprofit U.S. Federal Chaplains. Menendez greeted them before court and during breaks with hugs and handshakes.

“We are all here supporting the senator. We believe in his innocence,” Bishop Antonio Merino told reporters in Spanish.

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