The person and the lady arrived on the Washington steakhouse one night in Might 2019 and took a desk on the patio, close to the place 5 diners already had been seated and gave the impression to be having fun with themselves. Jackets had been off, laughter was heard and wine was being poured. A cigarette dangled from one man’s hand.
However there was one thing else that stood out: Among the many 5 had been Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and his future spouse, Nadine Menendez.
The couple who had arrived late seemed to be on a date. She was sporting a black gown, and through their meal he moved round their desk and used a digicam to, it appeared, snap her image.
However in actuality, court docket testimony on Tuesday confirmed, he was photographing the folks behind her, seated on the senator’s desk. The couple had been members of an F.B.I. surveillance staff, and so they had intentionally sat close to Mr. Menendez and his group, which additionally included an Egyptian authorities official.
The undercover F.B.I. investigators additionally used hid cameras to {photograph} and video-record the folks on the desk. The feminine investigator, Terrie Williams-Thompson, testified that at one level, she overheard Ms. Menendez, referring to the senator, ask the group, “What else can the love of my life do for you?”
The extraordinary scene of a U.S. senator beneath F.B.I. surveillance in an upscale restaurant, Morton’s The Steakhouse, not removed from the Capitol was detailed by Ms. Williams-Thompson in testimony at Mr. Menendez’s federal corruption trial in Manhattan.
Ms. Williams-Thompson mentioned she and a associate performed surveillance for roughly two hours on the restaurant. The overheard remark by Ms. Menendez has featured prominently within the prosecution’s case.
The Menendezes and two New Jersey businessmen — Wael Hana and Fred Daibes — have been charged in a conspiracy to offer the senator and his spouse gold, money, a Mercedes-Benz and different bribes value tons of of hundreds of {dollars} in change for the senator’s agreeing to steer help and weapons to Egypt and to meddle in prison circumstances in New Jersey.
An indictment filed final 12 months says the dinner on the steakhouse was considered one of numerous conferences Ms. Menendez organized for her husband and Egyptian officers.
The trial of Mr. Menendez, Mr. Hana and Mr. Daibes in its fourth week; Ms. Menendez’s trial was postponed by the decide, 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. Menendez, who filed on Monday to run for re-election to the Senate as an impartial, instructed reporters in Spanish as he left the courthouse Tuesday night: “Every single day we’re exhibiting the reality. Every single day we’re exhibiting them our innocence.”
Prosecutors additionally introduced testimony Tuesday from Anna Frenzilli, an F.B.I. particular agent who had executed a court-authorized search of a secure deposit field belonging to Ms. Menendez at a New Jersey financial institution.
Contained in the field, she testified, brokers discovered 10 envelopes — some with “Nadine” written on them — containing almost $80,000 in money and expired passports for her and her two kids.
Throughout a cross-examination of Agent Frenzilli, considered one of Mr. Menendez’s attorneys, Avi Weitzman, seized on her testimony in an obvious try and distance the senator from his spouse’s monetary dealings, a central side of Mr. Menendez’s protection technique. Through the trial, his attorneys have forged Ms. Menendez as quick on money and keen to gather luxurious objects, just like the Mercedes, and have mentioned that Mr. Menendez knew nothing of her monetary troubles and requests to mates for cash.
Mr. Weitzman famous that the financial institution’s log e book confirmed that solely Ms. Menendez had ever opened the field. He requested Agent Frenzilli if she had ever seen the senator’s identify on any of the envelopes or discovered any passports belonging to Mr. Menendez within the field.
No, the agent replied.
A kind of envelopes, on which somebody had scrawled “$10,000,” contained DNA that matched a pattern taken from Mr. Daibes, one of many senator’s co-defendants, in response to testimony Tuesday from Charity Davis, a forensic DNA examiner on the F.B.I. Mr. Daibes is accused of paying the Menendezes bribes in change for the senator’s efforts to assist him in a financial institution fraud case.
However it was the testimony in regards to the F.B.I. surveillance of Mr. Menendez and others at his restaurant desk that appeared to most rivet members of the six-man, six-woman jury.
Throughout cross-examination, Ms. Williams-Thompson, in response to questions from one other of the senator’s attorneys, Adam Price, mentioned she had not seen something to counsel Mr. Menendez and his fellow diners had been conscious of the F.B.I. surveillance or had been attempting to keep away from being watched.
Ms. Williams-Thompson, a veteran of almost 20 years with the bureau, testified that when she performed surveillance, her job was to mix into her environment. She usually wore Capri pants or denims, tennis sneakers and a shirt — “We have now to decorate the half,” she mentioned. If she was following somebody on a university campus, she would appear like a pupil: “T-shirt, denims, backpack, laptop computer, the entire 9 yards,” she mentioned.
She additionally studied the life patterns of people she was assigned to comply with: the place they work; what time they depart dwelling and return; how briskly or gradual they drive — “simply little on a regular basis issues about that particular person,” she mentioned.
She mentioned on the night time of Might 21, 2019, she and one other investigator, Damein Ragland, had been assigned to surveil “a topic from New York” who had come into the Washington space, whose identify she didn’t know. She mentioned the topic was not the senator however somewhat somebody who occurred to eat dinner with him at Morton’s.
She urged that the F.B.I. had a couple of investigative staff inside and out of doors Morton’s that night time; she was on a staff composed of seven to eight folks, she mentioned.
She and Mr. Ragland posed as a married couple on a dinner date, and had been pushed to the restaurant by her staff chief, who posed as an Uber driver.
That they had been given an outline of the topic and so they seen {a photograph} as effectively.
Ms. Williams-Thompson instructed the jury that she and Mr. Ragland used code names and stored their identities secret, even from Morton’s personnel.
“We don’t wish to blow our cowl,” she defined. “We have to make it possible for if there’s going to be an act carried out, we don’t want them to know the F.B.I. is there as a result of then it received’t be dedicated.”
They acted like unusual clients to take care of their cowl with the Morton’s workers in addition to with the folks on the subsequent desk. “We dined identical to them,” Ms. Williams-Thompson mentioned.
When a prosecutor, Lara Pomerantz, requested whether or not they had eaten, Ms. Williams-Thompson replied: “I certain did. It was good, too.”
“That’s a part of mixing in,” she added. “You eat? I’m going to eat.”
Decide Stein interjected: “I hope the F.B.I. paid to your meal.”
“Oh sure, sir, they did.”
