Jose Uribe, the businessman who has stated he bribed Senator Robert Menendez in return for his assist in quashing a felony investigation involving two individuals near him, testified on Monday that he had requested the senator straight for his assist and that Mr. Menendez had stated he would “look into it.”
Mr. Uribe stated that on Sept. 5, 2019, the night time earlier than Mr. Menendez met with New Jersey’s legal professional basic to debate the matter, he was invited to the senator’s girlfriend’s dwelling in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., the place he and Mr. Menendez sat on a yard patio, with the senator smoking a cigar.
Mr. Menendez rang a bit bell that he had on the desk, calling out “mon amour” — French for “my love” — and summoning Nadine Menendez, the lady he married the subsequent yr. Mr. Uribe stated she introduced him a chunk of paper and went again into the home.
On the senator’s request, Mr. Uribe wrote down the names of two associates and two firms he believed have been underneath investigation. Mr. Menendez then took the paper, folded it and positioned it in his pants pocket.
Mr. Uribe, who recounted the scene Monday throughout his second day of testimony at Mr. Menendez’s corruption trial, stated he pleaded with the senator. “I urge him to please do something in his energy,” Mr. Uribe testified, to cease any investigation “that might trigger hurt to my household.”
Mr. Uribe had repeatedly been asking Nadine Menendez to have the senator intervene on behalf of his associates, finally going to the senator himself.
“I requested him to assist me get peace for me and my household,” Mr. Uribe testified at Mr. Menendez’s trial in Federal District Court docket in Manhattan.
However Mr. Uribe additionally stated the boys by no means mentioned the hundreds of {dollars} in automotive funds Mr. Uribe had been making for a Mercedes-Benz convertible that, months earlier, he had offered to Ms. Menendez.
“I by no means talked to Mr. Menendez about making funds for the automotive,” Mr. Uribe testified.
Mr. Uribe, who has emerged because the prosecution’s chief witness in Mr. Menendez’s trial, stated he assumed Mr. Menendez would have recognized he was offering the monetary help to Ms. Menendez as a result of she had been attempting repeatedly to arrange a gathering for Mr. Uribe with the senator, so Mr. Uribe might search his assist in blocking the state investigation.
“The one cause why she’s attempting,” Mr. Uribe stated, “is I’m complying with my a part of the deal.”
Mr. Menendez, 70, and Ms. Menendez, 57, have each been charged with conspiring to take money, gold, the Mercedes and different bribes collectively price tons of of hundreds of {dollars} in return for the senator’s agreeing to dispense political favors at dwelling and overseas.
Mr. Uribe, in detailing a kind of alleged favors in testimony on Friday, stated he had been deeply involved in regards to the insurance coverage fraud investigation, which was being carried out by the New Jersey legal professional basic’s workplace. He stated the investigation was threatening to drag in a younger girl whom he thought of to be like his daughter. And he stated he initially raised the difficulty with a person named Wael Hana, who had lengthy been his and Ms. Menendez’s pal.
Mr. Hana instructed Mr. Uribe that in return for $200,000 to $250,000, he had “a technique to make this stuff go away,” Mr. Uribe stated.
“He might go to Nadine,” Mr. Uribe testified. “Nadine will go to Senator Menendez.”
Mr. Uribe, annoyed on the lack of any progress by Mr. Hana, stated he finally referred to as Ms. Menendez straight, providing to purchase her the Mercedes if she would intervene along with her husband on his behalf.
Mr. Menendez, who has emphatically maintained his innocence since prices have been introduced final September, stated as he left court docket on Monday to attend till Mr. Uribe might be cross-examined by his attorneys.
The senator’s attorneys have adopted a authorized technique of shifting blame for any wrongdoing to Ms. Menendez and of attacking Mr. Uribe’s credibility. One lawyer, Avi Weitzman, instructed the jury in a gap assertion final month that Ms. Menendez hid her monetary difficulties from her husband and “saved him at the hours of darkness on what she was asking others to offer her.”
Of Mr. Uribe, Mr. Weitzman stated, “We’ll have lots to debate on the finish of the case about him, about his lies and his dishonest and his crimes and all of the methods he’s been incentivized to proceed doing all of them.”
In his testimony, Mr. Uribe described a telephone name with Ms. Menendez wherein he stated she acknowledged some features of the alleged deal.
Mr. Uribe stated that after Ms. Menendez complained she wanted a brand new automotive, he promised to purchase her one if she was in a position to “assist me full this deal.”
“She agreed to the phrases,” Mr. Uribe testified; prosecutors say Mr. Uribe helped to purchase her a 2019 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible price greater than $60,000.
Mr. Menendez, Mr. Hana and one other co-defendant, Fred Daibes, are being tried collectively in Federal District Court docket. Ms. Menendez’s trial was postponed by the choose, Sidney H. Stein, till July as a result of she is being handled for breast most cancers. All 4 defendants have pleaded not responsible.
Mr. Uribe, 57, pleaded responsible in March and has been cooperating with the federal government.
