Feds reject ‘Gold Bar’ Bob Menendez move to call shrink for testimony that he stashes cash at home due to past trauma
Indicted Sen. Bob Menendez shouldn’t be allowed to cause “confusion and distraction” by calling a psychiatrist to testify at his upcoming bribery trial that the lawmaker stashes cash at home because of past trauma.
The New Jersey Democrat — who is charged with squirreling away piles of money given by businessmen in exchange for political favors — should be barred from calling Dr. Karen Rosenbaum as an expert to “opine” about how Menendez’s family tribulations, including his dad’s suicide over gambling debts, led him to hoard funds at home, Manhattan federal prosecutors wrote in court papers filed Wednesday.
The government said Menendez doesn’t need an expert witness to speak about the claim — which the senator himself made to reporters days after the indictment was unsealed in September — adding that the defendant or someone close to him could make the argument to jurors.
“Rosenbaum’s explanation of why Menendez stored cash in his home appears to be little more than an impermissible attempt to offer hearsay statements of the defendant, and to seek to engender sympathy based on his family background, in the guise of expert testimony,” prosecutors wrote.
Menendez’s defense team notified prosecutors of the trauma angle in an April 19 letter explaining that Rosenbaum — who notably testified for the defense of Manhattan “Killer Nanny” Yoselyn Ortega — would describe how Menendez has an untreated condition because of “two significant traumatic events” in his life.
Menendez, 70, has a “fear of scarcity” that prompted “the development of a longstanding coping mechanism of routinely withdrawing and storing cash in his home,” Rosenbaum would explain.
Rosenbaum would lay out for a jury how the senator “suffered intergenerational trauma” from his family’s experience having their money confiscated as refugees in Cuba and what little cash they had they kept in their home — a practice passed down to the senator, who was born in the US.
Another reason for the cash-stashing is because Menendez’s father was a compulsive gambler who committed suicide when his powerful son stopped paying off his debts, Rosenbaum would explain.
This all would explain, Menendez’s lawyers hope to prove, why the feds found nearly $500,000 in cash and at least 13 gold bars at his Englewood Cliffs home during a raid in June 2022.
Prosecutors say the defense claims shouldn’t be credited due to Menendez being a natural-born citizen and the fact that his father died nearly 50 years ago.
What small value Rosenbaum’s testimony could add “is substantially outweighed by the danger of jury confusion and distraction,” the feds argued, saying her testimony would be an end-run around Menendez risking cross-examination if he were to testify in his own defense.
Trial for Menendez and two co-defendants, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, is slated to kick off with jury selection May 13.
The trio, as well as Menendez’s wife Nadine, are accused of a corruption and bribery scheme in which the Menendezes received cash, gold and a Mercedes convertible in exchange for doling out favors to Daibes, Hana, Jose Uribe and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Uribe has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the feds, while Nadine’s trial was postponed until July due to health issues.
Menendez avoided conviction in a prior bribery case that ended in a 2017 mistrial. He has vehemently denied all the allegations against him.
The senator’s lawyers didn’t immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
