By Sen. Robert Menendez’s wife and co-defendant, Nadine Menendez, was hiding her financial troubles from her husband, a defense attorney for the New Jersey Democrat told jurors Wednesday in his federal corruption trial.
Nadine Menendez “kept Bob sidelined” from her discussions about her money problems, attorney Avi Weitzman said in an opening statement that at times seemed to defend the senator by casting blame on his spouse.
Weitzman told the jury that gold bars — which were seized in an FBI search of Menendez’s home and held up by prosecutors as evidence that he took years of bribes — were found in “Nadine’s closet.”
The senator, said Weitzman, had no key to that closet and no knowledge that his wife had received any gold bars from Fred Daibes, one of two businessmen standing trial alongside Menendez in Manhattan federal court.
Rather, Menendez thought it was “family gold,” Weitzman said, as he insisted that the once-powerful senator “took no bribes.”
The defense attorney addressed the 12-person jury after a federal prosecutor told them that Menendez “put his power up for sale” and “used his wife as a go-between.”
Menendez, 70, was “on the take” and “motivated by greed,” U.S. Attorney Laura Pomerantz said in an opening statement for the prosecution.
“This was not politics as usual,” Pomerantz said. “This was politics for profit.”
Menendez, Nadine Menendez, Daibes and Wael Hana, a second New Jersey businessman, are charged in the sprawling case alleging that the senator illegally took hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gold, cash and other gifts in exchange for official acts.
Menendez, who until the indictment served as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his wife are accused of using his political power to try to enrich the businessmen and benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
The trial for Menendez, Daibes and Hana began Monday. Nadine Menendez’s trial was severed from her co-defendants’ due to medical issues, and will be held at a later date. The senator’s wife has not appeared with him in court.
A third New Jersey businessman charged in the case, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty in March and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. He will testify as a witness for the prosecution, Pomerantz told the jury.
The opening statements began Wednesday afternoon, shortly after prosecutors and defense attorneys selected a full jury of six men and six women, plus six alternate jurors.
Judge Sidney Stein dismissed the the jury after Weitzman’s lengthy introduction, which lasted over an hour. Attorneys for Hana and Daibes are set to deliver their opening statements Thursday.
The trial could last seven weeks or more.
The 18-person jury was chosen behind closed doors, after two plodding trial days passed without a single juror being seated.
Those days were largely consumed by a lengthy process of individually questioning anyone who said they could not serve as a juror.
Dozens of people in the courtroom had raised their juror cards to potentially disqualify themselves from the trial.
By Tuesday evening, Stein had whittled down by half the pool of potential jurors, to 75.
Stein then began questioning individual jurors in open court about their occupations, families, living situations, media habits, hobbies and interests.
Prospective jurors identified themselves only by their assigned numbers but occasionally gave highly personal answers.
One of them, a self-described podcast “junkie,” said she has called into the talk show of New York City public radio veteran Brian Lehrer “a million times.”
“He knows my voice,” the woman added.
Another would-be juror told the judge that he lives alone and that his wife and son recently died.
A man who works as an attorney for a bank told Stein that he had previously contributed to Menendez’s political campaign.
The donation was made after a request by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to the man, who said he had made “dozens” of similar contributions over the years.
AIPAC endorsed Menendez in January, two months before the senator announced he would not enter the Democratic primary in a reelection bid but left the door open to run as an independent.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Wael Hana’s name.
