Prosecutors’ star witness faces cross-examination in Sen. Bob Menendez bribery trial

washington – A New Jersey businessman who says he bribed Sen. Bob Menendez, buying his wife a Mercedes-Benz convertible for the purpose of disrupting two criminal investigations, will continue to be questioned Tuesday in the Democrat’s corruption trial.

For two days, José Uribe, an insurance broker who is the prosecution’s main witness, detailed how he says he bribed the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, to stop criminal investigations carried out by the New Jersey attorney general into your business partners.

Uribe is the only defendant who has pleaded guilty in the case. The others, including the senator and his wife, pleaded innocent. Menendez is on trial alongside Wael Hana, owner of a halal certification company, and Fred Daibes, a real estate developer — both also accused of bribing the senator.

Uribe testified Monday that he asked the senator directly for help in quashing the investigations during two meetings in August and September 2019.

Their first encounter allegedly occurred months after he said he met Nadine Menendez in a restaurant parking lot, where he claims he handed her $15,000 in cash to pay for a luxury convertible. After that, he made monthly payments for the vehicle and tried to hide his involvement with them, Uribe told jurors.

“I remember telling her, ‘If your problem is the car, my problem is saving my family, and we came to an agreement to help each other,'” Uribe said.

During an August 2019 dinner with the senator and his wife, the investigations were discussed, Uribe testified. An employee Uribe considered family was under investigation and a business associate had been accused of insurance fraud. The business associate ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.

“He would look into it,” Uribe said of Bob Menéndez’s response after asking him to “stop this investigation.” “I asked him to help me achieve peace for myself and my family.”

The second meeting, Uribe said, took place over brandy and cigars in Nadine Menendez’s backyard on September 5, 2019.

The two men were alone when Bob Menéndez told Uribe he would have a meeting the next day at his Newark office with the New Jersey attorney general, according to Uribe.

The senator, he said, rang a bell that was on the table and called his wife using the French word for “my love.” She grabbed a piece of paper and went back inside, Uribe testified. Bob Menéndez asked him to write down the names of the people who worried him, Uribe said, recalling that the senator folded the paper and put it in his pants pocket.

Uribe said he and Bob Menendez did not discuss the car payment during their conversations. He assumed the senator knew about the payments and Nadine Menendez never told him not to keep it a secret.

The day after Bob Menendez met with the New Jersey attorney general, Nadine Menendez asked Uribe to meet with the senator at her building. The senator told him that “there was no indication of an investigation against my family,” Uribe testified.

Uribe said he received a call from the senator on October 29, 2019, when he said Menéndez told him: “What you asked me, there is nothing there.

Almost a year later, the two men were having dinner when Bob Menendez told him, “I saved your ass twice. Not once, but twice,” Uribe testified.