Senator Robert Menendez might blame his spouse, Nadine Menendez, for the bribery costs the couple is dealing with by claiming that she hid info from him and led him to imagine that “nothing illegal was happening,” based on court docket papers unsealed on Tuesday.
The revelation was contained in two sentences in a authorized transient filed by Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals. That they had requested a choose to maintain the knowledge secret as a result of it detailed trial technique that, if made public, would “absolutely garner vital media consideration” and “bias the jury pool.”
The brand new perception into Mr. Menendez’s protection comes simply three weeks earlier than he and two New Jersey businessmen are scheduled to go on trial in Manhattan, accused of collaborating in a wide-ranging corruption scheme. Ms. Menendez’s trial date was postponed to July after her legal professionals advised the choose she had a “critical medical situation” that may require surgical procedure and a probably prolonged interval of remedy and restoration.
The senator and his spouse are accused of accepting money, gold and a luxurious automotive in alternate for Mr. Menendez’s willingness to make use of his political affect to assist allies in New Jersey and to assist the governments of Egypt and Qatar. All 4 defendants have pleaded not responsible.
In keeping with the newly unsealed part of the transient, Mr. Menendez might testify at his trial and, if he does, he would disclose communications with Ms. Menendez that may “are inclined to exonerate” him however might incriminate his spouse.
The unsealing was ordered by a choose, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Courtroom, on the request of a coalition of stories organizations.
Ms. Menendez’s legal professionals mentioned that they had no touch upon the senator’s obvious protection technique.
Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Manhattan, which introduced the fees, additionally declined to remark.
The authorized transient that contained the peek into trial technique was initially filed in January below seal, with a redacted model posted on the general public docket. The 2 sentences in Mr. Menendez’s transient remained redacted till the choose’s order on Tuesday.
The problem of Mr. Menendez’s authorized technique first arose at a time when the senator and his spouse had been every asking the choose for separate trials due to the issues posed by a married couple’s being tried collectively.
Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals argued that to attempt them collectively “threatens the senator’s proper to a good trial by, amongst different issues, forcing him to decide on between two basic rights: his proper to testify in his personal protection and his proper to not testify in opposition to his partner.”
For months, Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals have strongly instructed that they deliberate to say that the senator was duped by his spouse. In a portion of the January authorized transient that was not redacted, they famous that the senator “lacked the requisite information of a lot of the conduct and statements of his spouse.”
“By this protection,” the legal professionals wrote, they “might should argue, in impact, that any illegal conduct — and we’re conscious of none — concerned the actions of others (together with Nadine), not the senator.”
If Mr. Menendez chooses to testify, his legal professionals wrote, he’s prone to clarify, for instance, what he and his spouse mentioned in the course of the dinners prosecutors say she organized with Egyptian officers. He may also disclose the reasons that Ms. Menendez gave him about why two different defendants “offered her sure financial gadgets,” they wrote.
Within the newly unredacted parts of the transient, Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals add that whereas these explanations, and the marital communications on which they rely, “will are inclined to exonerate Senator Menendez by demonstrating the absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s half, they could inculpate Nadine by demonstrating the methods during which she withheld info from Senator Menendez or in any other case led him to imagine that nothing illegal was happening.”
Ms. Menendez, 57, and Mr. Menendez, 70, married in 2020. Prosecutors have mentioned that the bribery conspiracy on the core of the prison costs originated in February 2018, quickly after they started courting.
Ms. Menendez, based on a federal indictment, performed a central position within the conspiracy. Prosecutors mentioned she served as a go-between who transferred messages between her husband, their co-defendants and Egyptian officers. A number of of the alleged bribes — a Mercedes-Benz convertible, mortgage funds and a low- or no-show job — had been offered to Ms. Menendez.
Earlier on Tuesday, prosecutors requested Decide Stein to delay the senator’s trial, presently scheduled for Could 6, explaining that negotiations with protection legal professionals had damaged down over a selected pretrial difficulty. If the battle isn’t resolved, the prosecutors mentioned, one co-defendant, Wael Hana, should retain a brand new lawyer.
Mr. Hana’s lawyer, Lawrence S. Lustberg, and Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals, Adam Payment and Avi Weitzman, every responded in letters to the choose, rejecting the federal government’s assertion that there was an deadlock. Mr. Payment and Mr. Weitzman argued that prosecutors had “manufactured” the dispute.
Decide Stein mentioned he would maintain a listening to on Wednesday to debate the disagreement and the timing of the trial.
