Feds blast ‘Gold Bar Bob’ Menendez’s blame-his-wife protection at bribery trial

Sen. Bob Menendez’s brazen plot accountable his spouse for his sprawling bribery scheme is merely a “determined” plea to dodge accountability himself, federal prosecutors argued Tuesday.

“There isn’t any approach that she might pull the wool over his eyes in order that he didn’t know what she was doing,” prosecutor Paul Monteleoni informed jurors Tuesday in Manhattan federal courtroom of the New Jersey lawmaker’s spouse, Nadine Menendez.

The senator is charged with accepting gold bars and money in change for favors to businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

“All through this trial, you might have heard that everybody is accountable however Menendez,” Monteleoni added, accusing the embattled Democrat of “making an attempt desperately to go the buck.”

On the finish of an almost six-hour closing assertion delivered over two days, the prosecutor repeated the phrase “blaming his spouse” 5 instances to remind jurors that Menendez’s attorneys have claimed that Nadine “sidelined” him from the scheme and stashed the gold bars in her secure with out his data.

“He’s blaming his spouse for what’s of their bed room closet,” Monteleoni mentioned, referring to the $150,000 price of gold, and envelopes filled with money that FBI brokers discovered of their Englewood Hills, NJ house in a June 2022 raid.

The prosecutor additionally introduced up a witness’s testimony that the senator as soon as rung a small bell to summon his spouse onto their patio after calling her “mon amour” — “my love” in French — as proof that Menendez was the one “in cost” of the bribery plot.

“He’s not a puppet having his strings pulled by somebody he summons with a bell,” Monteleoni mentioned.

Menendez, 70, faces a possible decades-long jail sentence if he’s convicted on the bribery fees and on fees that he acted as an unlawful international agent of Egypt and Qatar.

Prosecutors known as 30 witnesses in the course of the two-month-long trial, together with the New Jersey insurance coverage dealer Jose Uribe, who testified that he purchased Nadine a brand new Mercedes convertible in change for a promise that her husband would intervene in state prison probes affecting his associates and family.

“If you’re only a member of the general public, he gained’t do something for you,” Monteleoni mentioned Tuesday. “However in case you promise a Mercedes to his girlfriend, all you need to do is inform Menendez a reputation.”

Menendez additionally pressured the Agriculture Division to guard his co-defendant Wael Hana’s profitable “monopoly” on approving halal meat exports to Egypt — which Hana was granted regardless of having no prior halal expertise — in change for gold bars and a $120,000-a-year no-show job for Nadine, prosecutors say.

A lawyer for “Gold Bar Bob” Menendez, Adam Price, paced up and down the facet of the jury field Tuesday afternoon whereas accusing the feds of “ignoring the proof that’s unhealthy for his or her story” and criminalizing the “regular” work of a senator.

“The easy reality is his actions have been lawful, regular and good for his constituents and his nation,” Price argued.

The legal professional additionally ridiculed the feds’ repeated use of the time period “bribe” to explain proof that the senator wielded his affect to profit his cronies — whose fingerprints have been on the envelopes of money present in his house.

“These guys are saying the phrase ‘bribe’ so much,” Price informed jurors.

“It’s a bribe!”” he added, elevating his voice in a mocking tone.

Menendez, who has maintained his innocence and didn’t testify, sat calmly Tuesday in a darkish blue swimsuit and pink tie, wanting within the course of the jury whereas his lawyer spoke.

His daughter Alicia Menendez, an anchor at MSNBC, seemed on from the primary row of the courtroom gallery behind him.

Price spoke for practically three hours Tuesday afternoon earlier than the courtroom broke for the day.

The protection legal professional will end his closing assertion Wednesday morning, earlier than attorneys for Hana and a 3rd co-defendant, actual property mogul Fred Daibes, ship their very own assertion.

The feds will then get an opportunity to ship a closing rebuttal.

Menendez has refused to step down from workplace and has introduced plans to run for re-election as an unbiased, which might take away some votes from Democrat Rep. Andy Kim, who trounced Menendez in June’s main.