Prosecutors in the bribery trial of Senator Bob Menendez have finished presenting their case. Next is defense

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 examination, 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 proven its case,” the senator noted as he left the courthouse on Friday afternoon.

Menendez, 70, is on trial along with two businessmen after the third pleaded guilty as part of a cooperation agreement with the government and testified at the trial. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is also a defendant in the case, which came to light last fall. Her trial was postponed while she recovered from breast cancer surgery. All defendants pleaded not guilty.

Starting next week, Menendez’s lawyers plan to spend up to three days presenting testimony from several witnesses to support their claim 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 troubles. The couple married in the fall of 2020.

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

Judge Sidney H. Stein ruled Wednesday that defense lawyers can obtain testimony against evidence presented by prosecutors that could otherwise be interpreted as suggesting that Arslanian and the senator appeared to be keeping a close eye on each other’s whereabouts because they were involved in the alleged conspiracy.

However, he said he would not allow the jury to hear any evidence suggesting that she was hospitalized at some point because of an abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend.

“This is not going to be ‘Days of Our Lives’ or any soap opera,” the judge warned the lawyers.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.