The U.S. district court judge presiding over New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez’s second federal corruption trial says he has had enough of the drama.
“You’re not only making it a soap opera, you’re making it a bad soap opera,” Judge Sidney Stein reproached lawyers for the defense and prosecution as the case crawled into its eighth week Monday.
Menendez is accused, alongside his wife Nadine, of accepting bribes from a trio of New Jersey businessmen, who have also been charged with crimes.
It’s a sprawling, complicated case, and jurors so far have seen evidence of bags of cash and heard from U.S. diplomats and a New York City jeweler who were called as witnesses.
But the trial was nearly brought to a halt Monday as the defense and prosecution squabbled over which private details of the Menendez couple’s relationship the jury would hear.
“It’s an abuse of the court system,” Stein said before the jury entered the courtroom, complaining of a “tsunami of submissions” received over the weekend in the evidence dispute.
New Jersey’s senior U.S. senator, Menendez is now facing his second federal corruption trial, accused of bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.
Both he and his wife have pleaded not guilty, but Nadine’s trial has been postponed while she recovers from breast cancer surgery.
Absent from the courtroom, her presence has loomed large as the senator’s attorneys cast blame on her, claiming Nadine kept her husband “in the dark” about her financial troubles as well as gifts and other payments she took from their wealthy friends.
The couple began dating in 2018, marrying in 2020.
Now at issue is how much the jury will hear about Nadine’s tumultuous relationship with an ex-boyfriend, including the details of a restraining order she obtained and “alleged emotional and physical abuse.”
The senator’s attorneys also want to submit texts showing Bob and Nadine briefly broke up during the time the alleged bribes occurred because Nadine was still seeing her ex.
Judge Stein warned on Friday that the case was “not going to be ‘Days of Our Lives,’” strictly limiting which sensitive details the jury would hear.
The case is now behind schedule as the senator’s defense team and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York engage in near-daily disputes over minute details.
On Monday morning, Stein said he would need “at least” a day without the jury to sort through the legal arguments.
“I’m tempted to tell the jurors it’s the parties’ fault,” he said, before adding: “I’m not going to do that.”
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X.