Menendez’s trial separated from wife’s, which is delayed for medical condition

US Senator Bob Menendez’s bribery trial will begin in May as planned even though U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein severed the case against his wife and co-defendant, Nadine Menendez, from the others because of a health issue and conflict of interest concerns with her lawyers.

The 39-page indictment alleges that the Senator, 70, and his wife, 56, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes in exchange for protecting the three businessmen — Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes — and to “benefit” the government of Egypt.

Jose Uribe, who has pleaded guilty to charges related to the bribery scheme, is cooperating with federal prosecutors in the ongoing investigation.

“Ms. Menendez was recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition that will require a surgical procedure in the next four to six weeks as well as possibly significant follow-up and recovery treatment,” said a letter from her lawyers that informed the court she would not be in the “physical or psychological condition to participate” in the trial.

The nature of her condition was not disclosed to the public and the full extent of her necessary medical treatment is uncertain. Federal prosecutors agreed to these provisions.

Menendez previously fought off charges in an unrelated conspiracy that alleged he took lavish gifts to pressure government officials to benefit a Florida eye doctor by allowing young women into the country to have sex with him, hindering deal that would devalue a port security contract he had with the Dominican Republic, and trying to derail an investigation into his billing practices.

The high-profile 2017 trial concluded with a hung jury.

The U.S. Justice Department dropped those charges in 2018, and then-President Donald Trump acceded to a request from Menendez to pardon his co-defendant, Dr. Salomon Melgen, who was convicted of defrauding Medicare out of $73 million in a separate case.

Sen. Menendez’s criminal trial will proceed as scheduled on May 6 — but without his wife and co-defendant, who is unable to work with her lawyers to prepare for the trial in the next several weeks.

Her legal team asked for a status hearing to be eight weeks from now so Nadine Menendez can “provide the Court with an update on her medical condition and treatment plan and on a feasible timetable for rescheduling her trial date.”

At a hearing Thursday in federal court in New York, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ordered Nadine Menendez’s case to be severed from her husband due to a health issue she is experiencing.

“This trial is going forward without Mrs. Menendez,” the judge said.

The illness, which was not disclosed in court, has led to a lack of clarity about when she will be healthy enough to proceed to trial, the judge said, so he tentatively postponed her trial until July 8. Her attorneys have said the condition requires surgery and “possibly significant recovery” time.

Nadine Menendez had requested the postponement earlier this week, and prosecutors said they were fine delaying the trial until the summer. They had asked that the judge not sever the case, noting that many of the charges against her and her husband overlap and it would result in them having to essentially argue the same case twice.

Although the senator had previously asked that the trial be postponed, his attorney said in court Thursday he wanted to proceed to trial as quickly as possible and asked the judge to keep the May trial date. “We don’t need it and we don’t want it,” the lawyer, Adam Fee, said about the possibility of adjourning the trial.

Both defendants had previously asked that their cases be severed from each other.

Lawyers for the senator said in a motion to sever that he “intends to present a defense arguing (in part) that he lacked the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife, Nadine.”

“By this defense, Senator Menendez’s legal team may have to argue, in effect, that any unlawful conduct — and we are aware of none —involved the actions of others (including Nadine), not the Senator,” his lawyers wrote.

Lawyers for Nadine Menendez argued that a joint trial would “undoubtedly prejudice Ms. Menendez’s right to defend herself.”

They said it would be “unfair to require either spouse to sacrifice the right to testify fully in one’s own defense or the ability to maintain the confidentiality of privileged marital communications.”

Arslanian was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to Armenian parents who fled to Greece during the Lebanese Civil War, then moved to London, and eventually to the United States.