Just a few years after dodging prison thanks to legal loopholes, Jersey’s Sen. Bob Menendezagain faces federal corruption charges: Did he just decide he had an unlimited license to loot?
This time he stands indicted along with his wife Nadine and several others over a years-long scheme in which he allegedly accepted bribes — in cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, $100,000 in gold bars and more — in exchange for helping three New Jersey businessmen and Egypt’s government.
Prosecutors say $566,000 in cash was found hidden in the Menendez home, including bundles of cash tucked inside a jacket emblazoned with his name.
The earlier case ended in a mistrial with the feds eventually dropping all charges but still brought Menendez a Senate Ethics Committee rebuke, finding he’d violated federal law, that forced Menendez to repay more than $100,000 to his alleged briber, health-care fraudster Dr. Salomon Melgen.
Yet it seems the senator learned nothing — except to remind his wife this time ’round that she “should not text or email” about their schemes.
And it’s not just favors-for-cash this time: Prosecutors allege that Menendez abused his “power and influence,” providing “sensitive” secret US information to Egyptian officials, who then gave valuable privileges to a businessman who proceeded to do favors for the senator and his missus.
Who's involved in the indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez
The New Jersey Democrat is facing charges of taking gold bars and bribes and stashing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash around his house in return for using his “power and influence” — including his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to benefit the Egyptian government and two local businessmen.
Sen. Robert Menendez and Nadine Menendez
The New Jersey Democrat was indicted Friday for allegedly accepting a Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan, 13 gold bars and $566,000 in cash, which FBI agents found “stuffed in envelopes” after a June 2022 search of his home.
Senator Menendez’s wife, Nadine, was indicted alongside her husband for taking bribes. The Menendezes also received mortgage payments, a recliner, exercise machines and other items in exchange for shielding co-defendants Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.
Bob Menendez also allegedly attempted to intervene in a criminal case against Daibes by recommending President Biden pick current New Jersey US Attorney Philip Sellinger, who the senator believed would apply a light touch to the case.
If convicted on all charges, the Democratic senator faces up to 45 years in prison.
Fred Daibes
Menendez and his wife allegedly had a longstanding relationship with New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes, who court papers say bribed the couple with gold bars and cash for a series of favors, including the senator’s help disrupting a federal prosecution into Daibes.
Daibes received probation after pleading guilty last year to entering false loan information.
Jose Uribe
In April 2019, Menendez’s wife met a former insurance agent from Union City, NJ, Jose Uribe, “for five minutes.” Nadine Menendez ducked into the parking lot of a restaurant where Uribe, 56, handed her $15,000 in cash, court papers allege.
She then used the cash to make a down payment on a Mercedes-Benz C-class convertible – while Uribe asked the senator to tamper with the state attorney general’s prosecution of one of his colleagues for insurance fraud, according to the court docs.
Wael Hana
Menendez allegedly updated unnamed Egyptian officials in real-time about US military aid to the country through Edgewater, NJ, businessman Wael Hana. The businessman sent Menendez’s proposal for foreign military sale to Egypt of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition for firearms and tanks to an Egyptian official for approval.
In early 2021, Hana allegedly used funds from his halal business to send two exercise machines and an air purifier, among other items, to the Menendez home.
In exchange for these gifts and other alleged bribes, Menendez improperly pressured a US Department of Agriculture official to protect Hana’s “exclusive monopoly,” granted in 2019, on signing off on US food exported to Egypt as compliant with halal standards, despite Hana having no prior experience with halal certification, the feds said.
He’s also charged with trying to thwart a federal criminal probe into one of his co-defendants as well as recommending a nominee for US attorney in New Jersey he thought he could persuade on a different businessman’s prosecution.
His defense?
That the prosecution is a racist persecution. Ridiculous on it’s face, compounded by the fact that the US attorney bringing the charges is African American.
If the courts don’t oust him first, Garden State voters should choose someone else in next year’s elections.
It’s pretty simple: Don’t vote for a “public servant” who stores a half-million in cash and 13 gold bars in his home.
