Jurors weighing the gold bars corruption case against Sen. Bob Menendez ended their first day of deliberations Friday without reaching a verdict.
Manhattan Federal Judge Sidney Stein sent the panel home shortly after 5 p.m., about three hours after they received the case. They heard from 37 witnesses throughout the trial that started more than two months ago, with the embattled New Jersey lawmaker declining to take the stand in his defense.
On his way out of the courthouse, the senator told reporters, “I have faith in God and in the jury,” first in Spanish and then in English.
Menendez, 70, is accused of abusing his former position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2018 through 2023 by selling his influence to a trio of Garden State businessmen and the Egyptian government in exchange for wads of cash, gold bullion bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and other lavish gifts.
The feds say Menendez flexed his political power to sway criminal investigations into his associates, secure financing and equipment sales for the Egyptian military, aid lucrative Qatari investments in behind-the-scenes lobbying and advance other corrupt arrangements.
Menendez has pleaded not guilty to 16 felony counts, including bribery, wire fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and a host of conspiracy counts. He is the only sitting senator ever charged with conspiring to act as a foreign agent as a public official. Following his indictment, he relinquished his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but has refused to quit government, vowing to run for reelection as an independent.
The senator was indicted in September alongside his wife of four years and business associates Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, all of whom have pleaded not guilty. A fourth man charged alongside Menendez, former insurance broker Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud and other charges on the eve of trial and testified as a witness for the government. Uribe told jurors he gifted Menendez’s partner a Mercedes-Benz to secure his help tampering down criminal probes into his associates.
Nadine Menendez, whom the feds allege Menendez used as a “go-between” to his bribers, will go on trial at a later date while she undergoes treatment for breast cancer. Her husband’s lawyers threw her under the bus in his defense, claiming she kept him in the dark about her financial woes and what she was seeking from the businessmen.
Menendez’s defense team called his sister, Caridad Gonzalez, to testify that the wads of cash found during a raid on her brother’s Englewood Cliffs home related to a habit stemming from long-held trauma from their family losing their life savings after emigrating to the U.S. from Cuba.
Among other allegations, Hana is accused of bribing the senator to lobby the U.S. Department of Agriculture to maintain Hana’s exclusive monopoly on the certification of U.S. halal exports to Egypt, increasing costs for stateside suppliers when neither the businessman nor his company had experience with certification. The feds allege Daibes showered the Menendezes with gifts like cash, furniture and gold bars to recommend then-President Trump nominate a federal prosecutor who would favorably resolve a criminal case against him, among other efforts to interfere in his prosecution.
Deliberations were set to continue on Monday.
