In the bribery case against Nadine Menendez, a prosecutor informed a jury that she was a “critical participant” in a five-year scam with her husband, former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez. The jury will begin deliberations on Monday.
The jury in Manhattan federal court started deliberating the allegations against the 58-year-old resident of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in the middle of Friday afternoon. After over two hours, the jury returned home without rendering a decision.
The 71-year-old Democrat from New Jersey, Bob Menendez, will start his 11-year sentence in prison in June. Following his conviction last year, he resigned from his Senate position.
Barry Coburn, Nadine Menendez’s attorney, contended during a closing argument on Thursday that there was not enough evidence to indict Menendez.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Richenthal urged the jury to convict Nadine Menendez in a rebuttal argument Friday morning, arguing that they would have to accept that the FBI’s discovery of over $450,000 in cash and gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more in their home were gifts rather than bribes.
“They weren’t gifts,” he stated. “They were bribes.”
He characterised her as a “active participant, a critical participant” in the bribery conspiracy and referred to the evidence against her as “consistent and overwhelming.”
Nadine Menendez, who was born in Lebanon and has Armenian ancestry, started dating the senator in early 2018 under the name Nadine Arslanian.
She quickly joined a bribery conspiracy with three New Jersey businesses, according to the prosecution. In the autumn of 2020, the couple tied the knot.
The bribery plan was carried out by Bob Menendez, who started his Senate career in 2006 and held high-ranking posts on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
After being charged in the case, he was ejected from the committee.
Following her breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgery last year, Nadine Menendez’s trial was postponed.
