Bob Menendez’s alleged bribery scheme had wife using alternate ‘007’ phone, involved $35K diamond ring: court docs
US Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife received a diamond engagement ring as part of their alleged bribery scheme, which at times involved her using an alternate phone that the couple referred to as her “007” device, according to new court filings.
The veteran New Jersey Democrat, 70, allegedly had an arrangement with Egyptian American halal purveyor Wael Hana, but it supposedly nearly fell apart when the latter tried to cheat the politician and his wife, Nadine, out of the value of a diamond engagement ring, new court documents filed late Monday revealed.
Menendez allegedly received $150,000 in exchange for intervening in a criminal insurance fraud case, the documents indicated.
Hana — a co-defendant accused of using his company to funnel bribes to the Menendezes — was tasked with using part of the payout to buy Nadine a new Mercedes-Benz convertible and the $35,000 sparkler.
Hana, however, actually bought a $12,000 ring, and wangled a $35,000 receipt by splurging on two watches, a bracelet, and a necklace for himself, prosecutors stated.
“The Hana associate also explained that Menendez knew that Hana shortchanged him with respect to the ring, and that Nadine Menendez … had taken the ring back to the jeweler and learned that it was worth less money,” the document explained.
“Wael … was about to ruin things with Bob. Bob who is starting to listen to us,” a confidential source with ties to Egyptian officials said, according to prosecutors.
The new Mercedes, meanwhile, was intended to replace the car Nadine wrecked when she struck and killed a pedestrian in Bogota in 2018.
Last fall, Bob and Nadine Menendez pleaded not guilty to federal charges that they allegedly accepted hefty bribes — including hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars — from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for political favors.
Subsequent charges also accused Menendez of leveraging his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to act as an agent of Egyptian and Qatari interests.
The new filings rebutted the senator’s request to block evidence seized during searches of his Englewood Cliffs home on the basis that investigators were overly broad and ignored details that were favorable to the couple.
At times, Menendez made calls to what the couple supposedly referred to as Nadine’s “‘007’ phone” — an apparent reference to the fictional spy James Bond, prosecutors revealed in the new evidence drop.
When investigators searched the Englewood Cliffs house, they also supposedly found two bags filled with $100,000 in cash each “on top of a large rack of clothes hangers” in the couple’s basement, the filing added.
“Under the jackets were four boots, stuffed with cash, including one boot containing in excess of $5,000 in $50 bills,” the document stated.
Both Menendez and his wife had apparently told staffers that the gold bars at the residence were inherited from the latter’s mother after her death.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic in late 2020 and early 2021, Menendez also supposedly asked several New Jersey mayors to authorize COVID testing at a particular laboratory that was paying Nadine at the time, prosecutors alleged in the court documents filed late Monday.
The damning evidence, prosecutors wrote in the new filing, should be more than enough to demonstrate that “Menendez did in fact know about the corrupt quid pro quo.”
The filing also slammed the senator’s counsel’s claims that the allegations against him were part of “the government’s apparent zeal to ‘get back’ at Senator Menendez” after he narrowly dodged a federal corruption conviction in 2017.
The Menendezes’ three co-defendants — including Hanna — have pleaded not guilty.
Wael’s attorney, Lawrence S. Lustberg, declined to comment on the new allegations, but said they planned to reply to the prosecution with their own filing due Monday.
The attorneys for Bob and Nadine Menendez did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment.
