{"id":2267180,"date":"2024-06-13T17:32:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T21:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bob-menendez-trial-exposes-weird-quirks-held-by-new-jersey-senator\/"},"modified":"2024-06-13T17:36:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T21:36:44","slug":"bob-menendez-trial-exposes-weird-quirks-held-by-new-jersey-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bob-menendez-trial-exposes-weird-quirks-held-by-new-jersey-senator\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Menendez trial reveals unusual habits of New Jersey senator"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbob-menendez-trial-exposes-weird-quirks-held-by-new-jersey-senator%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2267180&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is undergoing a corruption and bribery \u200dtrial\u2064 which\u200b alleges\u200b he and his wife accepted bribes such as gold \u2064bars, a luxury car, and\u2062 substantial amounts of money from New\u200c Jersey \u200cbusinessmen \u200din exchange for political favors.\u2063 Menendez has pleaded not Assurevely to several \u200bcharges including bribery, extortion, fraud, and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, alongside co-defendants Wael\u200d Hana and Fred Daibes. A \u200cbusinessman, Jose Uribe, involved\u200b in the case has\u200c already pled guilty, admitting to bribery for\u200d political interference in fraud investigations.<\/p>\n<p>The trial has unveiled some peculiar personal behaviors of Menendez and his wife Nadine, including the senator&#8217;s method \u2063of summoning his wife using a small silver bell \u2064and\u200b the couple&#8217;s hoarding of \u200dgold \u200cbars. \u2062Nadine Menendez&#8217;s trial was delayed due to her \u2064health issues, while Menendez has previously faced and was acquitted\u2062 in a similar trial in 2017. The ongoing trial includes \u2064details of the Menendez&#8217;s luxurious lifestyle, frequent meals at an expensive \u2063steakhouse funded by his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/marriott-att-airbnbheres-the-list-of-corporations-announcing-they-wont-donate-to-gop-lawmakers-who-objected-to-electoral-votes-from-contested-states\/\" title=\"Marriott, AT&#038;T, Airbnb\u2026Here\u2019s The List Of Corporations Announcing They Won\u2019t Donate To GOP Lawmakers Who Objected To Electoral Votes From Contested States\">political action committee<\/a>, and unusual ways the couple maintained their relationship and personal dealings. This trial seems to reaffirm issues of corruption and personal misconduct that have surrounded Menendez \u2062for \u2064years.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/bob-menendez\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Sen. Bob Menendez's\">Sen. Bob Menendez\u2019s<\/a> (D-NJ) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/crime\/3001819\/bob-menendez-corruption-trial-everything-to-know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Sen. Bob Menendez's\">bribery and corruption trial <\/a>has not only exposed the seedy side of politics but has also highlighted some quirks held by the once-powerful Democratic senator and his wife, Nadine.<\/p>\n<p>Both are accused of accepting bribes from three <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/new-jersey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"New Jersey\">New Jersey<\/a> businessmen in the form of 13 gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and $500,000 in cash. In exchange, federal prosecutors allege Menendez greased the wheels in deals that benefited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3008005\/bob-menendez-bribery-trial-key-players\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"co-defendants\">co-defendants<\/a> Wael Hana and Fred Daibes.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) leaves the Manhattan federal court after the second day of jury selection in his trial on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York. The Democrat has pleaded not guilty to bribery, extortion, fraud, and obstruction of justice, along with acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. (AP Photo\/Stefan Jeremiah)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A third businessman, Jose Uribe, has already pleaded guilty and is expected to be sentenced Friday. <\/p>\n<p>He testified that he offered to buy Nadine Menendez a car in exchange for the sitting senator to make fraud investigations into his family and friend\u2019s insurance businesses go away.<\/p>\n<p>Uribe spent four days on the stand and lifted the veil on some of the Menendez family quirks, including the senator ringing a small silver bell to summon his wife of two years and the couple\u2019s penchant for hoarding\u00a0gold bars. <\/p>\n<p>Menendez, Hana, and Daibes have all pleaded not guilty and are on trial together. Nadine Menendez was supposed to be tried alongside her husband but had her court date pushed back to at least <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/nadine-menendez-bribery-trial-postponed-breast-cancer-surgery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"August \">August <\/a>following a cancer diagnosis that required immediate medical attention.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/morning-wire-email-dump-has-fauci-in-the-hot-seat-biden-administration-quiet-on-effective-antibody-treatment-texas-election-integrity-bill-becomes-law\/\" title=\"Morning Wire: Email Dump Has Fauci In The Hot Seat, Biden Administration Quiet On Effective Antibody Treatment, Texas Election Integrity Bill Becomes Law\">trial taking place<\/a> in a\u00a0Manhattan federal courtroom isn\u2019t Menendez\u2019s first rodeo.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, he dodged conviction on a laundry list of other corruption charges. That trial also revealed some oddities surrounding the senator who was forced last year to resign as head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a list of just a few of those learned\u00a0over the course of two federal corruption trials.<\/p>\n<h2>The bell<\/h2>\n<p>On his third day on the stand, Uribe testified that he had been trying to score a sit-down with the senator for months and, after much wrangling, finally had a face-to-face in\u00a0September\u00a02019.<\/p>\n<p>Uribe and Menendez were seated outside at a patio table in the backyard of Nadine Menendez\u2019s New Jersey home. After a brief chat, the senator allegedly asked Uribe for the names of the people who were being targeted by investigators, Uribe said.<\/p>\n<p>Menendez realized he had nothing to write on and rang a tiny bell on the table that summoned his wife, who appeared from inside the home with paper. Uribe scribbled down the details and handed over the paper to the senator.<\/p>\n<p>At trial, Menendez\u2019s lawyer, Adam Fee, took issue with the bell, grilling Uribe over how it looked, sounded, and if it even existed.\u00a0Fee told jurors Uribe stopped at a bar before the meeting, had been known to use Xanax without a prescription, and got Uribe to admit he couldn\u2019t remember if Nadine Menendez brought the paper immediately or if she came out and then went back inside to get it.<\/p>\n<p>Fee also asked Uribe if he shared the \u201csuper weird\u201d incident with anyone before he became the government\u2019s star witness against Menendez.<\/p>\n<p>Fee also suggested that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hunter-biden-throws-past-friend-under-the-bus-demotes-him-from-family-member-to-inmate\/\" title=\"Hunter Biden betrays former friend, demotes him from family to inmate\">prosecutors pushed back<\/a> on the bell story but Uribe didn\u2019t back down.\u00a0After Uribe finished his testimony, prosecutors called a paralegal to read two text messages Nadine Menendez sent to someone saying she was \u201clooking for the perfect bell.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Mon amour\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Uribe also said the senator called out, \u201cMon amour, mon amour, please come here,\u201d before ringing the bell to summon Nadine Menendez, who\u00a0was his then-girlfriend.<\/p>\n<p>The scene he painted could have been one out of a mob movie.\u00a0Uribe said the senator was drinking a glass of Grand Marnier and smoking a cigar when he rang the bell for her.<\/p>\n<p>After she rushed in, he asked for paper. Uribe wrote down the names of people being investigated, Menendez took a puff from his cigar, folded the piece of paper with the names, and put it into his pants pocket.<\/p>\n<p>The bell and the \u201cmon amour\u201d underscored the peculiar relationship between the now-married couple.<\/p>\n<p>Menendez\u2019s defense strategy has largely been to blame his wife. His lawyers claim he was lovestruck and didn\u2019t know what she was up to.<\/p>\n<h2>Morton\u2019s<\/h2>\n<p>FBI investigative specialist Terry Thompson testified that she was eavesdropping on one of Menendez\u2019s frequent dinners at the uber-expensive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/06\/04\/fbi-steakhouse-stakeout-menendez-00161662\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Morton's steakhouse in Washington, D.C.\">Morton\u2019s steakhouse in Washington<\/a> when she heard Nadine Menendez tell an unidentified diner, \u201cWhat else can the love of my life do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Menendez is infamous for holding court at the steakhouse, where a 16-ounce New York strip steak goes for $64, and billing it to his political action committee.<\/p>\n<p>Menendez has spent almost $40,000 at Morton\u2019s, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Since 2003, he\u2019s spent $386,000 at Morton\u2019s for meals, catering, and fundraising events.<\/p>\n<p>Before the jury was even seated in his trial, his attorney argued that prosecutors were unfairly painting the dinner as something nefarious. Instead, they argued that the upscale hot spot was his local haunt and that he goes there 250 nights out of the year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is nothing unusual about having dinner there with a diplomat or with a friend,\u201d Fee told Judge Sidney Stein.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors argued that just because Menendez went there a lot, it didn\u2019t mean all the dinners were above board.<\/p>\n<h2>Gold bars<\/h2>\n<p>Investigators found more than a dozen gold bars during a June 2022 search of Menendez\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p>Menendez claimed he had them because his Cuban heritage has given him PTSD. Specifically, he suffered from \u201cintergenerational post-traumatic stress disorder\u201d because of his parents\u2019 experience in Cuba, with confiscated property, before he was born. <\/p>\n<p>He also said they were tied to his father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>Menendez \u201cexperienced trauma when his father, a compulsive gambler, died by suicide after Senator Menendez eventually decided to discontinue paying off his father\u2019s gambling debts,\u201d a court filing reads.<\/p>\n<p>The senator, after charges were filed against him last year, said stashing gold bars and cash was common among immigrant families in case of \u201cemergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Juror talks<\/h2>\n<p>At Menendez\u2019s first trial in 2017,\u00a0juror Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby told the judge in August that she had a long-scheduled family vacation to the Bahamas in mid-November. The judge told her she could go if the trial was still going on, which it was, and he excused her.<\/p>\n<p>Arroyo-Maultsby promptly left the courtroom and told reporters what had been happening inside the secret jury room.<\/p>\n<p>A year later, Arroyo-Maultsby showed up at a Menendez political rally and then again at his election night victory party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never really knew anything about him before the trial,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northjersey.com\/story\/news\/politics\/elections\/2018\/11\/06\/juror-dismissed-menendezs-trial-shows-up-senators-rally\/1911716002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"she told \">she told <\/a>Northjersey.com. \u201cHe\u2019s a good man. I was in that jury room, and I know he didn\u2019t do anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/san-francisco\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER \">CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Menendez was accused of using his power to help South Florida doctor Salomon Melgen obtain visas for his foreign girlfriends. Prosecutors also alleged the senator intervened in a port security contract in the Dominican Republic and a multimillion-dollar Medicare dispute. <\/p>\n<p>Melgen was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Former President Donald Trump pardoned him and commuted his sentence in what federal prosecutors called one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases in U.S.\u00a0history.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine face a bribery and corruption trial, accused of accepting bribes including 13 gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible from three New Jersey businessmen. The trial reveals the darker aspects and peculiarities of the influential Democratic senator&#8217;s career<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2646,"featured_media":2267181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/AP24135786498448-1.jpg.optimal.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2267180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/AP24135786498448-1.jpg.optimal.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2646"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2267180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2267181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2267180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2267180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2267180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}