Nadine Menendez, wife of former Sen. ‘Gold Bar’ Bob Menendez, convicted of sprawling bribery scheme
Jurors found the 58-year-old Englewood Cliffs resident guilty of all 15 federal corruption charges against her following about eight hours of deliberations over two days.
Wearing all black save for a pink mask over her face, Nadine showed no discernible emotion as the jury foreman read out the guilty verdict inside a sparsely filled Manhattan federal courtroom.
He was convicted in July for his role in the sprawling plot, in which the couple leveraged his lofty Senate post to line their pockets.
The Garden State Democrat stepped down from the Senate in the wake of his own conviction and is set to report to prison in June to serve an 11-year sentence.
Nadine is expected to be sentenced June 12, just six days after Bob begins his prison term, and could face decades behind bars.
Prosecutors said she acted as the “go-between” connecting Bob with businessmen who funneled bribes to them from the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
In exchange, the pilloried pol leveraged his powerful post as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to lobby colleagues to unfreeze $300 million in Egyptian military aid that had been held up due to human rights concerns and dole out other valuable favors, jurors heard.
“What else can the love of my life do for you?” Nadine told one Egyptian official while sitting alongside her cigar-puffing hubby during a May 2019 dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse, evidence revealed.
Former Garden State insurance broker Jose Uribe testified that he bribed Nadine with a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 in exchange for her husband’s help shutting down a criminal probe.
“Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” Nadine texted her husband after receiving the first payment toward the new car, using the French phrase for “love of my life.”
FBI agents who raided the couple’s Englewood Hills home found the luxury car parked in their garage, and more than $150,000 in gold bars stored inside Nadine’s safe. Jurors saw more than $400,000 in cash stuffed into envelopes and strewn across the home, including inside the former senator’s official government windbreaker.
As the bribes poured in from businessmen Uribe, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, Nadine “put the senator’s power up for sale,” prosecutors said, calling her his “partner in crime.”
“The defendant helped Robert Menendez put his power up for grabs,” prosecutor Paul Monteleoni said in his closing statement. “You saw again and again a clear pattern of corruption.”
Nadine began dating the senator in early 2018, when she was known as Nadine Arslanian. The scheme began soon afterward, including with Hana, whom Nadine had known for years before meeting her husband. Nadine and Bob married in 2020.
She faces the possibility of decades in prison after being convicted of bribery, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges. But she’s more likely to be hit with a sentence somewhere in the range of the 11 years behind bars imposed on her husband in January.
Bob convinced Judge Sidney Stein to delay his prison stint until June 6 so that he could “assist” his wife during her trial — but the convicted felon’s support did not include attending her trial in person.
Nadine declined to comment Monday when asked outside court for her thoughts on the verdict, and on her husband not attending the trial.
Her lawyer Barry Coburn argued unsuccessfully at trial that the feds did not prove that she had the required “knowledge” or “intent” to commit the crimes.
Nadine had been originally set to go on trial together with her husband, Hana, and Daibes, who were all convicted, but her trial was pushed back after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Hana was sentenced to serve eight years in prison, and Daibes was hit with a seven-year sentence.
Uribe will be sentenced later this year after pleading guilty and cooperating with the government.
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