When Senator Robert Menendez was charged final 12 months with corruption after investigators discovered $486,000 in money stashed round his home in New Jersey, he supplied a easy, “old style” clarification: It had been his customized to withdraw money from a private financial savings account to maintain at residence, a behavior he realized from his Cuban immigrant dad and mom.
However federal prosecutors, in papers filed late Friday, offered contemporary particulars that they steered undercut Mr. Menendez’s declare. A number of the money was wrapped in bands displaying it had been withdrawn, at the least $10,000 at a time, from a financial institution the place Mr. Menendez and his spouse “had no recognized depository account.” This, prosecutors stated, indicated “that the cash had been offered to them by one other individual.”
Just lately, Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals had requested a choose to exclude a lot of the money found within the residence as proof when the senator’s trial in Manhattan begins subsequent month, arguing that there was no proof the cash was linked to against the law. The prosecutors’ Friday submitting was in response to this request.
The difficulty of the money cuts to a crucial theme of the federal government’s case: that the senator and his spouse, Nadine Menendez, had a way of life that was above their means and funded by bribes.
A federal indictment says that the money, together with gold bars and different worthwhile objects, had been “fruits” of a bribery scheme. A lot of the money discovered within the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., was found in a bed room closet, prosecutors stated of their submitting. Extra money was present in a duffel bag in an workplace, in a bag on a shelf above a coat rack within the basement, within the pockets of males’s jackets hanging on the coat rack, and inside footwear below jackets. As well as, greater than $70,000 was present in a protected deposit field maintained by Ms. Menendez, the federal government stated.
Mr. Menendez, 70, and his spouse are accused of accepting bribes in change for the senator’s willingness to make use of his political affect to disrupt legal investigations in New Jersey and to assist the governments of Egypt and Qatar. The Menendezes and two New Jersey businessmen charged within the scheme have all pleaded not responsible.
Mr. Menendez, the previous chairman of the highly effective Senate International Relations Committee, and the 2 businessmen are anticipated to be tried collectively, beginning Might 6 in Federal District Court docket in Manhattan. The senator has refused widespread requires his resignation and has stated that he hopes to run for re-election in November as an impartial if he’s exonerated.
Prosecutors have stated that at the least 10 envelopes of money present in searches of the senator’s home and a protected deposit field, containing greater than $80,000, bore the fingerprints or DNA of one of many businessmen additionally charged within the case. They stated gold bars had additionally been tied to the businessmen.
Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals had no touch upon Saturday. However in courtroom papers, they’ve stated they had been attempting to bar prosecutors from telling the jury solely about money that had no clear hyperlink to an alleged co-conspirator. “The federal government shouldn’t be permitted to attempt to sway the jury with dramatic presentation of worthwhile objects bearing solely a speculative connection to any charged offense,” they wrote.
The choose, Sidney H. Stein, dominated Thursday that Ms. Menendez, 57, will probably be tried individually, after her legal professionals stated she had a newly recognized medical situation that can require a surgical process and probably a prolonged restoration. The choose set a tentative July trial date for her.
Final September, Mr. Menendez, who was born in the US, supplied a proof for at the least a few of the cash discovered of their residence, tying it to his household’s roots in Cuba within the years earlier than Fidel Castro seized management.
For 30 years, Mr. Menendez stated, he had withdrawn hundreds of {dollars} in money from his private financial savings account, protecting it “for emergencies.” He stated the behavior stemmed from a “historical past of my household dealing with confiscation in Cuba.”
“This may occasionally appear old style,” he added, “however these had been monies drawn from my private financial savings account based mostly on the earnings that I’ve lawfully derived over these 30 years.”
The following month, in an interview with PBS, Mr. Menendez elaborated, stating that he had withdrawn $400 in money each week for “the higher half” of three a long time.
