Sen. Bob Menendez's 'gold bars' corruption case is heading to the jury. What to know

NEW YORK − After a federal corruption trial that spanned nearly two months, a federal jury in Manhattan will soon begin deliberations on the 18 counts facing New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez.

The Garden State Democract and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, federal prosecutors allege, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars, gold bars and a luxury car from a trio of northern New Jersey businessmen in exchange for helping them navigate various legal difficulties — all as they enriched themselves.

Menendez and Arslanian Menendez were initially indicted in September 2023 alongside Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan.

Some of the 18 charges facing Menendez, his wife, Hana and Daibes, include conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice.

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Menendez also faces allegations that he was working to benefit the governments of Qatar and Egypt — and that he accepted bribes to do so. Federal prosecutors contend Menendez worked as a foreign agent for Egypt. Other charges facing the veteran Democrat include fraud, extortion and bribery.

Uribe agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors and changed his plea from not guilty to guilty on seven counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud. Uribe also testified last month, saying he bribed Menendez.

What was said in closing arugments at Bob Menendez's trial?

During closing arguments this week, federal prosecutors reminded jurors that testimony showed investigators linked much of the cash and gold to Daibes and Hana through fingerprints, DNA and serial numbers and that many of the bank envelopes stuffed with cash brimmed with bills dated after 2018, when prosecutors say the bribery scheme began.

Menendez's attorney told jurors the senator’s actions were “lawful, normal and good for his constituents and this country.”

During the trial, Menendez’s defense heavily relied on blaming his wife and his alleged co-conspirators — a strategy that only took form once their trials were severed.

Arslanian Menendez's attorneys successfully moved to sever her trial from the senator's, arguing before U.S. District Court Judge Sidney H. Stein that a medical condition — later revealed to be Stage 3 breast cancer — made it impossible for her to stand alongside her husband. Arslanian's trial is set to begin Aug. 6.

More:What to know about Nadine Arslanian, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez's 'femme fatale'

Menendez revealed his wife's medical condition through a statement issued early in the trial — while he was sitting in the federal courthouse and less than 24 hours after his lawyer painted a very different picture of the married couple living separate lives that were full of secrets.

“I was surprised how far the Menendez defense went with pinning the blame on his wife,” said Mitchell Epner, an attorney with Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner who has 30 years of experience with government enforcement, compliance and white-collar litigation.

“One of the problems for the defense here is it’s hard for most people and the jurors to see Menendez’s defense say ‘it’s all my wife's fault’ but he’s still married to her,” Epner said. “It’s going to be a tough thing to wrap their heads around for a U.S. Senator, that you’re married to a felon that got you wrapped up in her felonies, which is the basically the defense's story.”

Christopher Adams, a Monmouth County-based attorney and past president of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey, said that the Menendez defense team did all it could to show holes in the government's case for the jury.

“There's a lot of evidence, but his defense team really tried to point out the lack of links of direct evidence,” he said.

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As for the efforts by the defense to point fingers at Menendez’s wife and co-defendant, Adams pointed out that Menendez was the “third ranking Democrat in the United States Senate at the time” and that since he is “one of the busiest, powerful, influential politicians in the nation, I imagine people will accept and understand that he does not involve himself in the day to day or the minutiae of his wife's work and goings on.”

Adams said that Menendez has always been “masterful at framing the narrative” and is “kind of walking between raindrops on that one of not blaming his wife but also saying, ‘I don't know what she did.’”

The trial went two weeks longer than anticipated and concluded with lengthy closing arugments from federal prosecutors, who tried to demonstrate how intertwined the many players were and the complications of their schemes.

“It’s been a complicated trial and complicated can be confusing,” Epner said. “One rule you learn as a federal prosecutor is to keep it simple, and they have not been able to do that here.”

More:Menendez allegedly aided Qatar in exchange for payments, updated indictment says

Epner said the length of the federal prosecutors' closing arguments — more than five hours — was not normal. Typically, he said, closing arguments are about the length of a movie — about two hours.

“When you hit five hours, you’re by definition telling people this is complicated, you want it to be simple, so simple that you should believe it without a reasonable doubt and that’s been the challenge the prosecution had here,” Epner said.

Adams also said because Menendez is facing a federal jury tasked with evaluating considerable amounts of evidence, he believes jurors will likely take the matter very seriously.

“Most people would say the rule of thumb is a quick verdict is an acquittal. They're going to come right back and acquit or they’re going to grapple with guilt and it takes a little longer,” Adams said. “A lot of times your deliberation is delayed because somebody's saying, ‘I'm not sure about this fact, and I have to go back and recount it and discuss it and deliberate.’ So it's a lot of reading tea leaves and it’s hard to say, but if I was a betting man, I would say they're going to be deliberating into next week.”

Adams also noted that there can be a split verdict where the jury may have different verdicts for each charge.

More:Why the Senate doesn't want to talk about Bob Menendez

What about Menendez's 2017 trial?

A 2017 investigation probed ties between Menendez and his longtime friend and donor, Salomon Melgen. They stood trial in federal court in connection with alleged favors given to Melgen after he paid for trips and expenses for Menendez.

In that case, Menendez was accused of taking campaign donations and lavish trips from Melgen, a south Florida ophthalmologist. Menendez denied that the benefits from Melgen were bribes, and said the gifts came from a longtime personal friend. The senator's trial ended in a mistrial after that jury voted 10-2 for acquittal. Prosecutors eventually chose not to retry the case.

Melgen was separately convicted of Medicare fraud but was pardoned by former President Donald Trump.

How has the Menendez trial impacted New Jersey politics?

Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the executive director of the FDU poll, said the main lesson here is that "partisans are very sensitive to elite cues."

"Why did Democrats in New Jersey turn on Menendez when he was indicted, while Republicans didn’t turn on Trump?" Cassino asked. "Because Democratic leaders in the state treated it like a big deal and repudiated Menendez in a way that Republicans didn’t repudiate Trump. When Menendez was first indicted, Democratic leaders stuck with him, and voters followed suit."

Cassino explained that voters don’t usually know how to feel about novel events like indictments so they take cues from party leadership and that the change in attitude is happening among politicians. He noted it isn’t that "long ago that major party politicians would have resigned if they were indicted, or been very strongly encouraged to do so by their parties" and that now "shame is not an emotion that’s overly represented among politicians."

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"These sorts of behaviors are likely to become more prevalent over time," Cassino said. "If it turns out that there’s no electoral penalty for staying in a race after indictments, then there’s less pressure for officials to step aside. Negative partisanship plays a role as well- if the other guys got away with it, why shouldn’t my guys?"

The state's senior senator will still be on the ballot this November, albeit as an independent. He did not attempt to enter what was for a time a contentious Democratic primary for the chance to run but instead announced that he would focus on the trial and then the campaign.

Though Menendez wasn't involved, he loomed large over the primary process after Rep. Andy Kim announced within days of the charges being announced that he would run for Senate. A few months later, first lady Tammy Murphy threw her hat in the race as well. The two battled for ballot position at county conventions earlier this year before Murphy ultimately withdrew from the race. Kim will face Republican Curtis Bashaw and an independent Menendez this fall.

How has the trial connected Menendez to Fred Daibes?

Menendez's indictment shed light on the Democrat's alleged interference with Daibes' ongoing federal case in which he faces charges related to bank fraud. Prosecutors said the senator recommended that President Joe Biden nominate a U.S. attorney whom he believed he could influence in Daibes' favor.

In 2018, Daibes was indicted on 14 federal counts for circumventing loans through a bank he founded and later served as the chair.

In the banking case, the government said Daibes and Michael McManus, the chief financial officer of Edgewater-based Daibes Enterprises, used others not named in the indictment to secure millions of dollars in loans. The loans were used for Daibes' benefit without the knowledge of the bank or regulators at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., prosecutors said. The activity allegedly occurred from 2008 through 2013.

Days after Menendez was indicted in the bribery and corruption case in October, the judge in that case rejected plea agreements from Daibes and McManus in the bank case. Daibes later withdrew his plea deal.

Daibes trial is set to begin in October in federal court in Newark.

Menendez is not alone in facing corruption charges in NJ

Menendez is not the first political player in New Jersey to face corruption charges. After some traffic problems tied up the George Washington Bridge at rush hour in September 2013 the scandal now known as Bridgegate thrust then-Gov. Chris Christie into the spotlight and led to an investigation, charges and trials for several of his staffers. Two convictions resulting from the incident were ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In June, George Norcross III, a South Jersey Democratic power broker, was charged with racketeering and criminal conspiracy in a 13-count indictment. The charges stem from tax breaks for a dozen companies that had ties to Norcross, Attorney General Matthew Platkin said when the charges were announced. This week, Norcross pleaded not guilty.

Menendez has been under other scrutiny in New Jersey

In 2006, Menendez was under investigation by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who later became governor, on suspicion of steering federal funds to a local nonprofit, but prosecutors closed the case without filing charges.

The issue in question was if it was a conflict of interest for Menendez to collect over $300,000 in rent on a property he owned from a group that receives federal aid. Menendez said the House Ethics Committee at the time told him it wasn’t. The property was a three-story brick house in Union City he owned that was rented to the nonprofit North Hudson Community Action Corp.

“Bob Menendez is either engulfed in corruption or he is oblivious to it. Either way he is unfit to serve New Jersey in the United States Senate,” Tom Kean Jr. — then a state senator and now a congressman — said at the time.

In 2011, the investigation was closed without any charges. Menendez shot back regarding the "anonymous complaints" that spurred the investigation.

In 2012, the year Menendez won a second term as senator, a campaign donor from Franklin Lakes, Joseph Bigica, admitted to federal authorities he made illegal contributions to the senator. Menendez said he was a victim and donated the money to charities. Menendez was the largest individual recipient of Bigica donations, accepting $46,900. Menendez said if Bigica was found to have done something wrong he would return the $16,300 Bigica and his family donated in that election cycle.

In 2013, a federal investigation revealed that the developers of the massive Meadowlands retail and entertainment complex now called American Dream were reportedly asked to contribute $50,000 to Menendez's campaign fund allegedly in return for the senator's help in getting permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Federal authorities did not pursue the accusation.

Katie Sobko and Kristie Cattafi are reporters at the Bergen Record, part of the USA TODAY Network.