Sept. 27 (UPI) — U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, arrived at a New York federal court Wednesday to answer to charges alleging the couple traded his political influence in Washington for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
The New Jersey Democrat was expected to plead not guilty at the arraignment in which he and his wife will both appear alongside New Jersey businessmen Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, who face charges of paying bribes to Menendez between 2018 and 2022.
Uribe is a former insurance agent, and Daibes is a real estate developer.
A fifth co-defendant, Egyptian-American businessman Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty Tuesday after he was arrested at Kennedy International Airport as he arrived from Egypt to face the charges against him.
When federal agents raided the Menendez home in Englewood Cliffs they found nearly $500,000 in cash stashed throughout, as well as “gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other items of value,” including a trove of jewelry and exercise equipment.
Investigators also said Daibes’ fingerprints and DNA were collected from envelopes full of cash.
During a press conference earlier this week, Menendez denied the “salacious” allegations, saying the money found in his home came from his personal savings.
“For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba,” he said Monday. “These were moneys drawn from my personal savings account based on the income I have lawfully derived over those 30 years.”
He also urged the public to wait for the truth to come out following his indictment last Friday on three federal criminal charges, including accepting bribes and using his position to benefit the government of Egypt, as well as the three New Jersey businessmen.
The 69-year-old Menendez stepped down from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but maintained his innocence, vowing he would not resign from the Senate.
On Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., joined a growing list of Democrats who have called on Menedez to resign.
The indictment, unsealed Sept. 22, alleges Menendez used his influence to pressure an official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly provided to Hana by the Egyptian government.
He is accused of trying to disrupt a criminal investigation by the New Jersey attorney general related to an associate and a relative of Uribe.
Menendez faces charges of recommending someone to be U.S. attorney in New Jersey whom he thought he could influence regarding the federal prosecution of Daibes and trying to influence the prosecutor’s office in the case.
In 2017, Menendez faced unrelated corruption charges in a case that ended in a mistrial.
