By Josh Christenson and Ben Kochman | New York Post
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine were charged Tuesday with lying to federal investigators in a new, expanded indictment accusing them of accepting gold bars and cash to dole out favors to local businessmen and foreign governments.
Both Menendez, 70, and Nadine were charged with new obstruction of justice and additional bribery counts in the fourth version of an indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
The married couple, alongside co-defendants Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are now charged with 18 counts — 16 of which involve the senator — as part of a “corrupt relationship” to benefit the New Jersey businessmen, the Egyptian government and Qatar, the revised indictment shows.
The alleged bribes included more than $566,000 in cash, roughly $100,000 in gold bars, home mortgage payments, payments for a “low-or-no-show job,” a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and even exercise machines and an air purifier.
Previous indictments charged the senator with wire fraud, extortion, bribery and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt between 2018 and 2022 — while serving as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Menendez has since stepped down from that position but refused to resign from office — despite pressure from Republican and Democratic colleagues.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of New York, which announced the charges, declined to comment.
The indictment comes after a fifth co-defendant in the case, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges including obstruction of justice and pledged to “cooperate fully” with investigators.
Uribe confessed to making several wire payments to Nadine Menendez through a Bronx bank to help disrupt an investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office into one of his associates for alleged insurance fraud.
Uribe’s cooperation may have led to new allegations in the filing about false statements made by the senator and his wife to federal investigators in August and September 2023, just before their first indictment.
Menendez, his wife, Hana and Daibes, who have each pleaded not guilty, are currently scheduled to head to trial on May 6.
The latest indictment realleges that the Garden State Democrat, in exchange for bribes, provided sensitive US government information to Egypt and pressured the US Department of Agriculture to protect a business monopoly Hana held.
It also restates the senator’s involvement in a deal between Daibes, a real estate developer, and a member of the Qatari ruling family in 2021 to connect with a Doha-linked firm.
The FBI raided Menendez’s New Jersey home in June 2022 and seized the cash, “much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,” as well as the gold bars.
On Monday, federal judge Sidney Stein rejected a move by Menendez’s lawyers to declare the search warrants that found the “fruits” of his corrupt agreement with Hana, Daibes and Uribe unconstitutional.
Menendez has denounced his “persecution” by the Justice Department, noting at the start of this year that prosecutors had filed three indictments against him since September.
