A New Jersey businessman testified on Friday that he bribed Sen. Bob Menendez, telling a jury within the New Jersey Democrat’s bribery trial that he gave the lawmaker’s spouse a Mercedes in alternate for his affect.
Jose Uribe, who pleaded in charge in March and is cooperating with prosecutors, was once requested at the witness stand whom he bribed. Uribe informed the jury that he had bribed Menendez, and conspired with some other businessman Wael Hana. Uribe additionally stated that the senator’s spouse, Nadine Menendez had approved the bribes he paid. The senator, his spouse and Hana have all pleaded now not in charge.
Menendez and his spouse are charged with accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes — a few of it within the type of gold bars — in alternate for reliable acts from Menendez as senator.
A spokesperson for Menendez declined to touch upon issues comparable to the trial. An lawyer for the senator didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Friday afternoon.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz had argued prior to a panel of 12 jurors and 6 alternates in New York initially of the trial remaining month that the New Jersey Democrat abused his place as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to “put greed first” and referred to the senior senator as each “powerful” and “corrupt.”
In the protection’s opening observation, an lawyer for Menendez, Ari Weitzman, stated that his consumer had now not violated the regulation.
“There received’t be a unmarried piece of actual proof the senator approved a bribe. There is an blameless cause of the gold and the money,” Weitzman said.
Menendez has served in the Senate since 2006. He stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shortly after he was indicted in September but has resisted calls for his resignation.
Menendez up to now confronted a federal indictment when he was once charged in 2015 with illegally accepting favors from a Florida eye physician, allegations that he denied. The case led to a mistrial, with jurors not able to succeed in a unanimous verdict and prosecutors opting now not to pursue a retrial.