Jury in Bob Menendez bribery trial will hear of cash and gold bars ‘stuffed in safes and jackets’, judge rules

A jury in Senator Bob Menendez’s bribery trial will hear about cash and gold that was found “stuffed in pockets, in a safe, in jackets” at his home, a judge ruled on Monday.

The decision was made on Monday at a final pretrial conference in the bribery and conspiracy case against the New Jersey Democrat, according to Law360.

Mr Menendez, 70, and his wife, Nadine, were charged last September over allegedly accepting gifts including cash, gold bars and a luxury car in exchange for the senator’s influence to enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit the Egyptian government.

The couple, who are being tried separately, have both pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Authorities seized $100,000 in gold bars and more than $480,000 cash, mostly stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe at their home, according to a federal indictment. Photographs in the indictment reveal jackets, bearing Mr Menendez’s name and government seals, stuffed with bills.

His trial is scheduled to begin on 13 May in Manhattan while his wife’s trial was postponed until July for health reasons.

Prosecutors say businessman Wael Hana had arranged meetings between Mr Menendez and Egyptian officials, who pressed the senator to sign off on military aid. In return, Mr Hana put Ms Menendez on the payroll of a company he controlled, prosecutors alleged.

Mr Menendez, who has been a senator since 2006, chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2013 to 2015, and from 2021 until September 2023 when he was forced to step down. He is still a sitting senator but is not running for re-election in New Jersey.

The senator and his wife are also accused of attempting to “cover-up” the bribery scheme by using some of the money to pay for a Mercedes-Benz and home mortgage payments.

Following the criminal charges related to Egypt, the couple was slapped with two superseding indictments in October relating to an alleged scheme involving Qatar.

Last month, Judge Sidney Stein ordered separate trials for Mr and Ms Menendez following news that she had fallen ill, would require surgery and then weeks of recovery.

Court documents revealed that lawyers for Mr Menendez also asked that the senator and his wife be tried separately because he “intends to present a defence arguing (in part) that he lacked the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife, Nadine”.

“By this defense, Senator Menendez’s legal team may have to argue, in effect, that any unlawful conduct — and we are aware of none —involved the actions of others (including Nadine), not the Senator,” his lawyers wrote.

His legal team argued that the senator would face a “Catch-22” situation if he is tried alongside his wife. According to the lawyers, a joint trial would “force Senator Menendez to make an impossible and prejudicial choice between testifying on his own behalf and exercising his spousal privilege to avoid being converted through cross-examination into a witness against his spouse”.

In a separate motion, lawyers for Ms Menendez made a similar argument.

Her lawyers argued a joint trial would likely demonstrate an “irreconcilable conflict between husband and wife” and that it would be “unfair to require either spouse to sacrifice the right to testify fully in one’s own defence or the ability to maintain the confidentiality of privileged marital communications”.