Prosecutors in Senator Bob Menendez’s bribery trial have finished presenting their case. Now it’s the defense’s turn

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial rested Friday after presenting evidence for seven weeks, allowing the Democrat and two New Jersey businessmen to begin calling their own witnesses to support defense claims that no crimes were committed and no bribes were paid.

On the final day of direct testimony, prosecutors obtained detailed information about the senator’s financial records by questioning an FBI accountant.

Prosecutors say gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash found during a search of Menendez’s home two years ago were bribes paid by three businessmen between 2018 and 2022 in exchange for favors that the senator, using his political power, performed in their name.

Defense attorneys say the gold belonged to his wife and that Menendez had a habit of keeping cash at home after his family lost almost everything in Cuba before moving to New York, where Menendez was born.

“The government has not presented sufficient evidence to support its case,” the senator noted as he left the courthouse on Friday afternoon.

FILE – U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., leaves federal court after a day of proceedings in his bribery trial, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, in New York. Prosecutors rested Friday, June 28, 2024, after seven weeks of presenting evidence in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial, allowing the Democrat and two New Jersey businessmen to begin calling their own witnesses next week to support defense claims that no crimes were committed and no bribes were paid. (AP Photo/Larry Neumeister, File)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Larry Neumeister

FILE – U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., leaves a Manhattan federal courthouse after the second day of jury selection in his trial Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York. Prosecutors rested Friday, June 28, 2024, after seven weeks of presenting evidence in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial, allowing the Democrat and two New Jersey businessmen to begin calling their own witnesses next week to support defense claims that no crimes were committed and no bribes were paid. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Stefan Jeremiah

Menendez, 70, is on trial with two businessmen after a third pleaded guilty in a cooperation agreement with the government and testified at trial. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is also charged in the case, which was unsealed last fall. Her trial has been postponed while she recovers from breast cancer surgery. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Starting next week, Menendez’s lawyers plan to spend up to three days presenting testimony from several witnesses to support their argument that Nadine Menendez, who was Nadine Arslanian when she began dating the senator in early 2018, kept her husband in the dark about her financial problems. The couple got married in the fall of 2020.

Defense attorneys also plan to present testimony that Arslanian maintained close contact with the senator at the height of the alleged conspiracy in late 2018 and early 2019 because she was harassed by her ex-boyfriend.

Judge Sidney H. Stein ruled Wednesday that defense attorneys can obtain testimony countering evidence presented by prosecutors that otherwise could be interpreted to suggest that Arslanian and the senator appeared to be keeping close track of their whereabouts because they were involved in the alleged conspiracy.

But he said he would not allow the jury to hear any evidence suggesting she was hospitalized at some point as a result of an abusive relationship with an ex-boyfriend.

“This will not be ‘Days of Our Lives’ or a soap opera,” the judge warned the lawyers.