Corrupt New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, who had a mistrial in an earlier bribery case, was indicted again by DOJ. They caught him with cash hidden in his house and in safety deposit boxes. Read the indictment below:<\/p>\n
ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, is the senior US. Senator from the State of New Jersey. From at least 2018 up to and including in or bout 2022, MENENDEZ and his wife, NADINE MENENDEZ, a\/k\/a \u201cNadine Arslanian,\u201d the defendant, engaged in a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey associates and businessmen\u2014WAEL HANA, ida \u201cWill Hana,\u201d JOSE URIBE, and FRED DAIBES, the defendants\u2014in which MENENDEZ and NADINE MENENDEZ agreed to and did accept hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using MENENDEZ\u2019spowerand influence as a Senator to seek to protect and enrich HANA, URIBE, and DAIBES and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt.<\/p>\n
Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for low-or-no-showjob, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value.<\/p>\n
This corrupt relationship resulted in ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, promising to take and taking a series ofofficial acts and breaches of official duty in exchange for bribes that benefitted him both directly, and indirectly through NADINE MENENDEZ, ida \u201cNadine Arslanian,\u201d the defendant. First, MENENDEZ promised to and did use his influence and power and breach his official duty in ways that benefited the Government of Egypt and WAEL HANA, a\/k\/a \u201cWill Hana,\u201d the defendant, an Egyptian-American businessman, among others. Among other actions, MENENDEZ provided sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt. MENENDEZ also improperly advised and pressured an official at the United States Department of Agriculture for the purpose of protecting a business monopoly granted to HANA by Egypt and used in part to fund the bribes being paid to MENENDEZ through NADINE MENENDEZ.<\/p>\n
Second, MENENDEZ promised to and did use his influence and power and breach his official duty to seek to disrupt a criminal investigation and prosecution undertaken by the New Jersey Attorney General\u2019s Office related to JOSE URIBE, the defendant, and his associates.<\/p>\n
Third, MENENDEZ promised to and did use his influence and power and breach his official duty to recommend that the President nominate an individual as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey who MENENDEZ believed could be influenced by MENENDEZ with respect to the federal criminal prosecution of FRED DAIBES, the defendant, and to seek to disrupt that same prosecution.<\/p>\n
In or about June 2022, federal agents executed search warrants on the New Jersey home and the safe deposit box of ROBERT MENENDEZ and NADINE MENENDEZ, a\/k\/a \u201cNadine Arslanian,\u201d the defendants. In conducting these court-authorized searches, agents found certain of the fruits of MENENDEZ\u2019s and NADINE MENENDEZ\u2019s corrupt bribery agreement with WAEL HANA, a\/k\/a \u201cWill Hana,\u201d JOSE URIBE, and FRED DAIBES, the defendants, including cash, gold, the luxury vehicle, and home furnishings.<\/p>\n
Over $480,000 in cash\u2014much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe\u2014was discovered in the home, along with over $70,000 in NADINE MENENDEZ\u2019s safe deposit box. Some of the envelopes contained the fingerprints and\/or DNA of DAIBES or his driver.<\/p>\n
In or about early 2018, NADINE MENENDEZ, a\/k\/a \u201cNadine Arslanian,\u201d the defendant, informed WAEL HANA, a\/k\/a \u201cWill Hana,\u201d the defendant, that she was dating ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant.<\/p>\n
In the following months and years, HANA and NADINE MENENDEZ worked to introduce Egyptian intelligence and military officials to MENENDEZ for the purpose of establishing and solidifying a corrupt agreement in which HANA, with assistance from FRED DAIBES and JOSE URIBE, the defendants, provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes to MENENDEZ and NADINE MENENDEZ, in exchange for MENENDEZ\u2019s acts and breaches of duty to benefit the Government of Egypt, HANA, and others, including with respect to foreign military sales and foreign military financing.<\/p>\n
At all times relevant to this Indictment, Egypt was among the largest recipients in the world of U.S. military aid.<\/p>\n
Between approximately 2018 and approximately 2022, the U.S. Government supplied substantial military aid to Egypt, including in the form of grants of over $1 billion per year (\u201cforeign military financing\u201d), and in the form of direct government-to-government sales of military equipment (\u201cforeign military sales\u201d), which Egypt typically paid for with foreign military financing, and which the Executive Branch was required to notify Congress about under certain circumstances prior to going forward with those sales.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of State (the \u201cState Department\u201d) played a central role in reviewing and approving foreign military sales to Egypt and obligating foreign military financing to Egypt, which was conditioned on certain certifications being made by the State Department.<\/p>\n
As a matter of longstanding, voluntary practice, the State Department would typically honor so-called \u201cholds\u201d placed by the Chairman or the Ranking Member of the SFRC on both foreign military financing and foreign military sales. In other words, the State Department would typically not proceed with a transfer of foreign military financing grant money to Egypt\u2019s bank account (located at all relevant times in Manhattan), or with a foreign military sale to Egypt, while the Chairman or the Ranking Member of the SFRC had not signed off on, and was maintaining a \u201chold\u201d on, such a transfer or sale.<\/p>\n
As a result, at all times relevant to the Indictment, ROBERT MENENDEZ, the defendant, as the Chairman or the Ranking Member of the SFRC, possessed substantial influence over foreign military sales and foreign military financing to Egypt.<\/p>\n
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