Michael Hernandez
16 July 2024•Update: 17 July 2024
WASHINGTON
A federal jury in New York found Sen. Bob Menendez guilty on Tuesday of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
The jury reportedly deliberated for three days following the senior senator's nine-week trial, ultimately finding him guilty on all 16 counts against him.
Prosecutors alleged that Menendez, 70, accepted bribes from a trio of New Jersey businessmen -- Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe -- that included gold bars, mortgage payments, a luxury car and more than $480,000 in cash. The payments were made in exchange for Menendez carrying out a series of favors that included shielding individuals from prosecution and illicitly using his office to benefit the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
Menendez's wife, Nadine Arslanian, was charged with crimes in a separate case, but her trial has been indefinitely delayed to allow her to recover from breast cancer surgery.
The Menendezes pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Shortly after the verdict was announced, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Menendez to step down.
"In light of this guilty verdict, Senator Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate, and our country, and resign," he wrote on X.
Cory Booker, the state’s junior senator, joined the appeal for Menendez's resignation, saying it is "a dark, painful day for the people of New Jersey."
"I call on Senator Menendez to resign," Booker said in a statement. "I originally did so last fall because of the severity of the allegations against him and how they shook the public's trust. Now, with this conviction, the urgency for Senator Menendez to step down and for the governor to appoint a replacement has even more urgency."
Hana is the owner of IS EG Halal Certified, Inc., a startup company that won a lucrative contract with the Egyptian government to conduct all halal inspections for US exports to Egypt despite not having any experience.
He allegedly arranged meetings between Menendez and Egyptian officials "for corrupt purposes," including putting Menendez's wife on Hana's company's payroll "for a low-or-no-show job" in exchange for the senator's promise to facilitate arms sales and financing to Cairo, according to the indictment.
Investigators found more than $486,000 in cash when they searched Menendez's home in 2022, "much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets and a safe," in addition to gold bars, according to the indictment that was unsealed in December.
Two of the 1 kilogram and nine one-ounce gold bars that were recovered bore serial numbers indicating they were once owned by Daibes, according to prosecutors.
