Senator Robert Menendez could blame his spouse, Nadine Menendez, for the bribery costs the couple is going through by claiming that she hid info from him and led him to imagine that “nothing illegal was happening,” in keeping with court docket papers unsealed on Tuesday.
The revelation was contained in two sentences in a authorized transient filed by Mr. Menendez’s attorneys. That they had requested a choose to maintain the data secret as a result of it detailed trial technique that, if made public, would “certainly 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 attorneys advised the choose she had a “critical medical situation” that will require surgical procedure and a doubtlessly prolonged interval of therapy and restoration.
The senator and his spouse are accused of accepting money, gold and a luxurious automobile in trade 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 could testify at his trial and, if he does, he would disclose communications with Ms. Menendez that will “are likely to exonerate” him however could incriminate his spouse.
The unsealing was ordered by a choose, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Courtroom, on the request of a coalition of reports organizations.
Ms. Menendez’s attorneys 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 costs, 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 difficulty 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 attorneys argued that to strive them collectively “threatens the senator’s proper to a good trial by, amongst different issues, forcing him to decide on between two elementary rights: his proper to testify in his personal protection and his proper to not testify towards his partner.”
For months, Mr. Menendez’s attorneys have strongly recommended 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 data of a lot of the conduct and statements of his spouse.”
“By this protection,” the attorneys wrote, they “could 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 attorneys wrote, he’s prone to clarify, for instance, what he and his spouse mentioned throughout the dinners prosecutors say she organized with Egyptian officers. He may additionally 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 attorneys add that whereas these explanations, and the marital communications on which they rely, “will are likely 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 through 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 felony costs originated in February 2018, quickly after they started relationship.
Ms. Menendez, in keeping with 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 Choose Stein to delay the senator’s trial, presently scheduled for Could 6, explaining that negotiations with protection attorneys had damaged down over a selected pretrial subject. If the battle will not be 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 attorneys, Adam Price and Avi Weitzman, every responded in letters to the choose, rejecting the federal government’s assertion that there was an deadlock. Mr. Price and Mr. Weitzman argued that prosecutors had “manufactured” the dispute.
Choose Stein mentioned he would maintain a listening to on Wednesday to debate the disagreement and the timing of the trial.