Sen. Bob Menendez pressured prosecutors, leaked intel for gold, cash and car, feds say

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey leaked sensitive information to the government of Egypt and sought to influence criminal cases on behalf of businessmen who gave him and his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash, gold, jewelry and other bribes, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Friday in Manhattan.

Following a years-long investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez are accused of leveraging the senator’s influence, particularly his position as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to benefit three businessmen — and themselves — from 2018 through 2022.

In one case, prosecutors say, the Democratic senator helped an Egyptian expat ingratiate himself with his native country’s government by leaking sensitive diplomatic information and even ghost-writing a letter urging senators to release a hold on $300 million in government aid to the African nation. In exchange, the indictment alleges, the businessman paid down $23,000 in debt on Nadine Menendez’s home mortgage and paid her $30,000 more for a “low-or-no-show job.”

The senator is also accused of trying to quash criminal investigations for a second businessman who paid for a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible for his wife. Additionally, prosecutors say Menendez attempted to influence the appointment of the U.S. attorney in New Jersey in 2021 and then pressure prosecutors in the office to go easy on a case against a political fundraiser — who thanked him with bars of gold.

The couple’s scheme was so lucrative, the indictment states, that when federal agents searched their New Jersey home last summer, they found over $100,000 worth of gold bars and another $480,000 in cash — “much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe.”

Both the senator and his wife face one charge of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and conspiracy to commit extortion. Together, the charges carry a combined maximum sentence of 45 years.

On Friday, the senator — who in 2017 beat corruption charges involving his relationship with a South Florida eye doctor — said he “will not be distracted by baseless allegations.”

“I have been falsely accused before because I refused to back down to the powers that be and the people of New Jersey were able to see through the smoke and mirrors and recognize I was innocent,” he said in a statement.

“I have also stood steadfast against dictators around the globe — whether they be in Iran, Cuba, Turkey, or elsewhere — fighting against the forces of appeasement and standing with those who stand for freedom and democracy.”

An attorney for Nadine Menendez told the New York Times that the senator’s wife “denies any criminal conduct and will vigorously contest these charges in court.”

Along with the Menendezes, prosecutors charged the three New Jersey businessmen — Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes — with one count of bribery. Efforts to reach them on Friday were unsuccessful.

The indictment

Though the senator referred to the charges against him as “baseless,” investigators say the Menendezes and their allies memorialized parts of their scheme in text messages and emails, many of which were later deleted.

In Hana’s case, prosecutors say Menendez, 69, helped the businessman secure a monopoly certifying that U.S. food exports to Egypt met halal standards by texting privileged information to his wife, who in turn texted Hana. Tips included sensitive information from the U.S. State Department about staff serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and later “non-public information about the United States’s provision of military aid to Egypt,” according to the indictment.

They also say Menendez then worked to help Hana’s business by pressuring a senior official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to dial back scrutiny on Hana’s company after his monopoly increased costs for U.S. meat suppliers.

The indictment alleges that Nadine Menendez, with the help of her husband, went as far as to set up a corporate entity — Strategic International Business Consultants, LLC — to receive bribe payments from Hana.

According to the indictment, she described the business this way in a text to a relative: “Every time I’m in a middle person for a deal I am asking to get paid and this is my consulting company.”

For Uribe, who prosecutors say works in trucking and insurance, Menendez allegedly made calls to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and later a detective to try and harm a criminal investigation into an employee and and associate of the businessman.

And for Daibes, a real estate developer and political fundraiser charged in 2018 with obtaining loans under false pretenses from a New Jersey bank he co-founded, Menendez attempted to hand-pick a friendly U.S. attorney in New Jersey, the indictment states. Menendez, according to the indictment, recommended that President Joe Biden nominate Philip Sellinger to be the U.S. attorney for New Jersey in 2021 because Menendez believed he “could be influenced.”

The U.S. Senate ultimately confirmed Sellinger to the position, however he recused himself from Daibes’ prosecution and was not accused of any wrongdoing.

“Fortunately, the public officials the senator sought to influence did not bend to the pressure,” Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Friday during a press conference announcing the charges.

Menendez’s Future

The case against Menendez once again thrusts the prominent senator into the spotlight.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Menendez has spent roughly 50 years climbing the political ladder. At just 20 years old, he was elected to the Union County, N.J. school board before serving as mayor. He was eventually elected to the state assembly, state Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. In 2005, when former U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine stepped down to become New Jersey governor, he appointed Menendez as his replacement.

In nearly 18 years in the Senate, Menendez has carved out a reputation as a longstanding critic of the government in Havana and has broken with members of his party on policy toward Cuba. He has also criticized the Biden administration’s engagements with Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

Menendez has already announced that he plans to run for a fourth term in the Senate next year. He already has at least one primary challenger, and just this week, New Jersey mayor Christine Serrano Glassner became the first Republican to jump into the race against Menendez.

In the event that Menendez steps down from his Senate seat before the end of his term, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, would appoint a successor.

Murphy appears ready to do so. He called for Menendez’s resignation on Friday, describing the charges against the senator as “deeply disturbing.”

“Under our legal system, Senator Menendez and the other defendants have not been found guilty and will have the ability to present evidence disputing these charges, and we must respect the process,” Murphy said. “However, the alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state.”

Friday’s indictment isn’t the first time Menendez has faced legal trouble. He was charged in 2015 with accepting lavish gifts, campaign contributions and vacations from a prominent South Florida eye doctor in exchange for political favors. That case ultimately ended in a 2017 mistrial.

The eye doctor in that case, Salomon Melgen, was convicted that same year of defrauding Medicare out of $73 million and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Former President Donald Trump commuted Melgan’s sentence in 2021, just hours before he left the White House.