At Menendez trial, businessman tells senator of alleged bribe

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New Jersey businessman testified this week in the corruption trial of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez that the lawmaker claimed he “saved” the insurance broker, who bought from the wife of Menendez a Mercedes-Benz worth $60,000, criminal charges.

The prosecution's star witness, Jose Uribe, told jurors he bribed Menendez into buying a car for Nadine, the senator's then-girlfriend, in 2019. Uribe said Nadine Menendez, who married Bob Menendez in 2020, previously assured her that she would relay Uribe's concerns regarding two insurance fraud investigations. to the senator.

The following year, over dinner at a New Jersey restaurant called Segovia, Uribe said Menendez told him he had found “the right people to talk to” – without specifying who.

“He said, 'I saved your ass twice – not once, but twice,'” Uribe testified Monday.

Menendez, 70, a three-term Democratic senator and seeking re-election this year as an independent, has pleaded not guilty to 16 criminal charges, including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and 'impediment.

The car purchase was part of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes — which also included cash, mortgage payments and gold bars — that federal prosecutors in Manhattan allege Menendez and his wife accepted in exchange for political favors and aid to the Egyptian and Qatari governments.

Uribe pleaded guilty this year to fraud and corruption charges and is cooperating with prosecutors. He testified that he gave Nadine Menendez $15,000 in cash for her car down payment during a meeting in a restaurant parking lot in March 2019, and that he made monthly payments toward the vehicle until the FBI asks him about it in 2022.

Earlier in the trial, Menendez's lawyers accused his wife of hiding her financial dealings from him.

To bolster his defense, Uribe said he never discussed the car payment directly with Menendez.

“I didn’t talk to Mr. Menendez about bribery,” Uribe said Tuesday during cross-examination.

But under questioning by prosecutor Lara Pomerantz, Uribe said Nadine Menendez never asked him to keep the payments secret from the senator and said he had no reason to believe Bob Menendez didn't know.

Uribe testified that he gave Menendez the names of people and businesses close to him under investigation during a meeting in the senator's backyard on September 5, 2019. He said that Menendez had written the names on a sheet of paper brought to him by Nadine, whom he summoned by ringing a bell and shouting “mon amour” – French for “my love.”

Nadine Menendez has pleaded not guilty. Her trial was postponed until July because she is being treated for breast cancer. Her husband's trial could last until June.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis)