Federal bribery charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife tied to their alleged “corrupt relationship” with three New Jersey businessmen were announced Friday by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors say Menendez and his wife, Nadine, agreed to and accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes in exchange for using the senator’s “power and influence” to enrich the three — Wael “Will” Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe — as well as benefit Egypt.
The bribes included “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other things of value,” according to the indictment, which was first published by Politico.
Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Friday that Menendez’s own Senate website details actions he can’t engage in as a senator, such as compelling an agency to act in someone’s favor or involving himself in criminal matters.
“But we allege that, behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people — the people who were bribing him and his wife,” Williams said during a press conference.
Menendez faces three counts, including conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, a charge for public officials who take bribes in return for official acts.
The investigation is “very much ongoing,” Williams said Friday.
In a statement, Menendez said he has “been falsely accused before” and is “confident that this matter will be successfully resolved” once all the facts come to light.
“The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent. They have misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office. On top of that, not content with making false claims against me, they have attacked my wife for the longstanding friendships she had before she and I even met,” he said.
He added that “forces behind the scenes” are attempting to “silence my voice and dig my political grave.” Those forces “simply cannot accept” that a “first-generation Latino American from humble beginnings” became a senator, Menendez posited.
Prosecutors say the senator provided sensitive U.S. government information to “secretly aid” Egypt while also pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a business monopoly Egypt granted to Hana, a longtime friend of Nadine Menendez. The monopoly was used to fund the bribes being paid to Menendez through his wife, the indictment says.
In one such instance detailed in the indictment, Menendez and his wife met with Hana in May 2018. The same day, Menendez requested nonpublic information from the State Department about people serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The information was not classified but “deemed highly sensitive” due to security concerns.
Without informing his staff or the State Department, Menendez texted that information to Nadine, who was then his girlfriend. She forwarded the message to Hana, who then forwarded it to an Egyptian government official, according to the indictment.
The New Jersey senator also sought to disrupt a criminal investigation by the state’s attorney general’s office into Uribe, the second businessman, and his associates, according to the indictment. In exchange, Hana and Uribe helped buy a new Mercedes-Benz convertible for Menendez’s wife, the indictment says.
And Menendez recommended that the president nominate an individual as New Jersey attorney general under the belief that person could be influenced by Menendez regarding the criminal prosecution of Daibes, the third businessman, prosecutors claim. The Menendezes received cash, furniture and gold bars in return, according to the indictment.
“As we allege in the indictment, the senator agreed to do these things and use his power in this way because Hana was paying bribes, because Uribe was paying bribes and because Daibes was paying bribes,” Williams said.
When federal agents searched Menendez’s New Jersey home in June 2022, they said they found more than $480,000 in cash, much of it stuffed into envelopes or hidden in clothing, closets and a safe.
The agents also allegedly found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars. In March 2022, Menendez amended a federal disclosure report to indicate an asset of gold bars worth between $100,001 and $250,000, which he said belonged to his wife, according to The New York Times.
Menendez did not, however, disclose receipt of any payments toward the Mercedes-Benz convertible or the receipt of “any cash or gold bars by him” or his wife in the years relevant to the indictment, according to the charging document.
The New Jersey senator was also indicted on federal corruption charges in 2015, but they were dropped in 2018 when a jury could not reach a verdict.
Menendez is chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations — a role from which he stepped away during his previous indictment.
In May, he had denied any wrongdoing.
“I am sure it is going to end up in absolutely nothing,” he said.
In announcing her 2024 Senate challenge to him last week, Christine Serrano Glassner, the Republican mayor of Menham Borough, N.J., had pointed to the “dark cloud of corruption that has been following Bob Menendez for a decade.”
“We need a leader to fight for the hardworking men and women of New Jersey – and for America. I am that leader, and I will defeat Bob Menendez and end his career of cronyism,” Serrano Glassner said in the campaign announcement.
Updated at 11:56 a.m. ET