Catherine Rusoff
As Judge Sidney Stein interviewed potential jurors in a room outside the courthouse for the federal corruption trial in New York from Senator Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator sat alone at a defense table on Tuesday.
The judge heard a series of reasons why potential jurors say they should be excused from Menendez’s trial, which could stretch into July. Some cited medical reasons; others said the trial would negatively affect their jobs or travel plans.
However, several said they were concerned that they had heard too much, to be fair, about the case in which 70-year-old Menéndez was loaded with bribery, extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice, in addition to acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.
“I’m a news junkie and I’ve already learned a lot about the case. I knew it was Bob Menendez the second I walked in,” one juror said.
“Like a lot of people,” the judge replied before asking if the man could still decide the case based on trial testimony. The man said he thought he could.
Jurors were identified only by numbers during the selection process. It was unclear when opening statements might begin.
Andrea Shepard
Prosecutors say Menéndez and his wife accepted bribes, including gold bars, cash and a luxury car, from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for official acts. He is on trial with two of the businessmen, while a third pleaded guilty under a cooperation agreement and is expected to testify on behalf of the government.
Menéndez’s wife must be tried separately in July for health reasons.
All defendants pleaded not guilty to charges that they used Menendez’s power as senator to their benefit while he received gifts.
After his arrest last fall, Menéndez was forced to give up his powerful role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but he defied calls from members of his own party to resign before the end of his term in January.
After three terms in the Senate, he announced he will not seek re-election on the Democratic ticket this fall, although he has not ruled out the possibility of running as an independent.
“I am hopeful that my exoneration will occur this summer and allow me to pursue my candidacy as an independent Democrat in the general election,” he said in March.
Menendez has already been tried in an unrelated case. In 2017, a federal jury deadlocked on corruption charges brought in New Jersey and prosecutors did not attempt to retry him.
In the new case, an indictment accused the senator of taking actions on behalf of businessmen that would benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Menéndez insisted that he did nothing unusual in his dealings with foreign officials.
According to one indictment, co-defendant Fred Daibes, a real estate developer, handed gold bars and cash to Menéndez and his wife so the senator could help him secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund, acting in a manner favorable to the Qatari government. .
The indictment also alleges that Menendez did things that benefited Egyptian authorities in exchange for bribes from co-defendant Wael Hana, while the businessman secured a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.
The senator’s lawyers asked the judge to authorize testimony from a psychiatrist who examined the senator. She concluded that Menendez stored money in his home as a “coping mechanism“after” two significant traumatic events “in his life, they said. Prosecutors objected to allowing his testimony, questioning the scientific basis of his conclusions and arguing that it was an attempt to gain the jury’s sympathy.
Stein said Monday he would make a decision on expert witnesses “in the coming days.”
