After calling simply 4 witnesses, attorneys for Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey rested their case late Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan federal court docket, setting the stage for jurors to start deliberations in his worldwide bribery conspiracy trial early subsequent week.
Mr. Menendez, 70, mentioned that he determined in opposition to testifying in his personal protection for 2 major causes.
The federal government, he mentioned, had not proved its case, and he didn’t wish to give prosecutors a possibility to rehash the fees twice — as soon as on cross-examination and once more in closing arguments.
That was “merely not one thing that makes any sense to me in any way,” Mr. Menendez mentioned as he left the courthouse after proceedings ended for the day.
“I count on my attorneys will produce a strong and convincing summation, deduce how the proof got here out, the place they failed throughout the board, and have the jury render a verdict of not responsible,” he added.
Last summations within the case — first by prosecutors, then by attorneys for Mr. Menendez and two co-defendants, adopted by a authorities rebuttal — are more likely to start as early as Monday afternoon, in line with the choose, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court docket.
A lawyer for one of many co-defendants, Fred Daibes, a New Jersey actual property developer charged with giving bribes of gold and money to the senator and his spouse, rested his shopper’s case with out calling a single witness. Attorneys for the opposite co-defendant, Wael Hana, who runs a worldwide halal meat certification firm based mostly in New Jersey, have been anticipated to name their remaining witness on Monday morning.
That witness, described in court docket as a former Egyptian authorities official who now works for Mr. Hana’s firm, has been attempting to acquire a visa for almost a month to journey to the US to testify.
Prosecutors have mentioned that Mr. Menendez exerted stress on an official with the U.S. Division of Agriculture to assist safeguard a profitable monopoly that Egypt had awarded Mr. Hana’s firm, IS EG Halal. In return, the corporate funneled bribes to Mr. Menendez by way of his spouse, Nadine Menendez, in line with a federal indictment.
Mr. Menendez’s protection case included testimony from two relations — his older sister, Caridad Gonzalez; and Katia Tabourian, his spouse’s sister.
Ms. Menendez, 57, has additionally been charged within the conspiracy. Prosecutors have depicted her as a key go-between and a conduit for bribes that included gold, money and a Mercedes-Benz convertible.
Jurors heard her voice in telephone messages and have been proven scores of texts she wrote. However she by no means stepped foot within the courtroom through the trial. Decide Stein postponed her trial after she was identified with breast most cancers; Mr. Menendez disclosed through the first week of trial testimony that she was getting ready to bear a mastectomy and would possibly want further radiation remedy. She has pleaded not responsible.
Through the trial, a lot of Mr. Menendez’s protection developed by way of vigorous cross-examination of presidency witnesses, as his attorneys sought to undermine prices that he and his spouse took lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} in bribes in alternate for the senator’s willingness to make use of his political clout to do favors for buddies and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
The bribery scheme alleged by prosecutors started in February 2018, lower than a month after Mr. Menendez was cleared of prices tied to an unrelated federal corruption case in New Jersey. That case led to a mistrial in 2017 after jurors have been unable to agree on a verdict, and prosecutors selected Jan. 31, 2018, to drop the remaining prices.
Mr. Menendez additionally determined in opposition to testifying within the 2017 trial, which the jury within the Manhattan case haven’t been informed about.
For the reason that center of Might, prosecutors have launched 1000’s of items of proof, together with textual content, e-mail and voice mail messages that have been performed aloud in court docket. The federal government additionally questioned greater than a dozen witnesses who testified in opposition to Mr. Menendez, together with a former New Jersey legal professional basic, Gurbir S. Grewal, and the state’s prime federal prosecutor, Philip R. Sellinger.
Prosecutors have mentioned the senator sought to meddle in felony issues earlier than their workplaces on behalf of his allies.
As a part of the protection case, Ms. Gonzalez, who’s 11 years older than the senator, supplied testimony that appeared supposed to undermine the federal government’s declare that money discovered throughout a June 2022 F.BI. search of the couple’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J., residence got here from bribes paid to the couple.
Mr. Menendez mentioned after he was indicted final 12 months that he had often withdrawn cash from his financial savings account for many years for “emergencies,” and that he did so “due to the historical past of my household going through confiscation in Cuba.” His household fled Cuba for the US in 1951, three years earlier than he was born in New York Metropolis.
Ms. Gonzalez, who mentioned she was 8 when the household left Cuba, elaborated in court docket on her brother’s public account, telling the jury that their father had saved cash in a false backside of a grandfather clock and that her mom, a seamstress, hid money within the door body of a closet.
“Daddy all the time mentioned, ‘Don’t belief the banks. When you belief the banks, you by no means know what can occur,’” Ms. Gonzalez testified Monday.
After Mr. Menendez’s attorneys referred to as their remaining witness late Wednesday, Decide Stein questioned the senator, out of the jury’s view, to ensure he understood the choice whether or not to testify was his alone. Mr. Menendez mentioned he had mentioned the matter “at size” along with his attorneys.
Quickly, when the jury had returned, Adam Price, certainly one of his attorneys, introduced, “Your honor, that was our final witness, and with that, the protection for Senator Menendez rests.”
