“Throughout this trial, you heard that everyone was to blame but Menendez,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni told jurors in his closing argument Tuesday.
NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez’s litany of explanations for why a stockpile of cash and gold bars were in his house when it was raided by the FBI defy logic, the prosecution said Tuesday, particularly the veteran lawmaker’s “preposterous” assertion that he didn’t know the piles of money and other treasures were in his bedroom closet because his wife kept its door locked.
Menendez, 70, is charged with 16 felony counts, including bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent. The government alleges that he benefited from a wide-ranging conspiracy during which he offered favors and influence in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts. The case has tarnished his lengthy political career; a conviction could carry a significant prison term and a ban on him ever again holding public office.
“Friends do not give friends envelopes stuffed with $10,000 in cash, just out of friendship, kilos of bars worth $60,000 each out of the goodness of their hearts,” Monteleoni said Tuesday. All three men pleaded not guilty. Businessman Jose Uribe, charged with bribing the senator, pleaded guilty in March and testified for the government. He told jurors that Menendez asked him for details about a criminal case Uribe wanted the senator to “stop and kill” after he began financing the luxury convertible for the lawmaker’s then-girlfriend.
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