Sen. Bob Menendez’s bizarre explanations for why a stockpile of cash and gold bars were in his house defy logic, according to the prosecution, particularly the veteran lawmaker’s “preposterous” assertion that he didn’t know the piles of money and other treasures were in his bedroom closet because his wife kept its door locked.
The government’s closing argument as Menendez’s two-month corruption trial nears an end reminded jurors of all they had seen and heard in testimony: the incriminating text messages, origins of all that cash and the value of the brick-sized ingots, as well as Menendez’s effort to handpick a New Jersey federal prosecutor who he believed would derail a friend’s 2018 indictment for bank fraud.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni scoffed at the idea that Menendez’s wife, Nadine, secretly hoarded thousands of dollars she collected without his knowledge, saying “he obviously had access to the closet in his own bedroom.”
“Throughout this trial, you heard that everyone was to blame but Menendez,” Monteleoni said in his five hours of closing argument.
Menendez, 70, is charged with 16 felony counts, including bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent.
The government alleges that he benefited from a wide-ranging conspiracy during which he offered favors and influence in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts.
The case has tarnished his lengthy political career; a conviction could carry a significant prison term and a ban on him ever again holding public office.
The New Jersey Democrat was previously indicted on unrelated federal corruption charges in 2017, a case that was not retried after the jury deadlocked, and a mistrial was declared.
A search warrant executed in June 2022 at Menendez’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J., home yielded the trove of evidence used against him and two co-defendants at this trial.
Agents found more than $480,000 in cash, some of which was in envelopes inside the lawmaker’s jackets.
At the time, he was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and in that role he had dealings with foreign governments that prosecutors say he began to exploit. (He was removed as chairman after being indicted.)
“Friends do not give friends envelopes stuffed with $10,000 in cash, just out of friendship. Friends do not give those same friends kilogram bars of gold worth $60,000 each out of the goodness of their hearts,” said Monteleoni.