Sen. Bob Menendez faces dozen new counts including bribery

Prosecutors have filed more than a dozen charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D.N.J.), including obstruction of justice and bribery, after one of his co-defendants agreed to cooperate in a plea deal. Additional charges were filed.

In a superseding indictment announced Tuesday, Menendez is charged with 16 criminal counts for allegedly accepting lavish bribes in exchange for political influence and acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.

Menendez has pleaded not guilty to a number of previous charges and has rejected calls to resign from the Senate.

Many of the new charges relate to an alleged conspiracy with three New Jersey businessmen that was already disclosed in the senator’s previous indictment, but prosecutors are now moving beyond simply filing conspiracy charges. , which directly charges Menendez with bribery, extortion, and acting as a foreign agent.

The new indictment documents follow the recent guilty plea of ​​Jose Uribe, one of three businessmen indicted along with Menendez and his wife, Nadine. Other businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Dives also face new charges.

Prosecutors allege that in June and September, Menendez paid Hana more than $23,000 for Nadine Menendez’s mortgage and Uribe’s Mercedes-Benz convertible. The suit alleges that he directed his lawyers to tell the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in June and September what he knew about the funds. .

The New Jersey Democrat also allegedly urged the attorney to tell the prosecutor’s office that he later learned the money was a loan.

“In truth, and in fact, and as Menendez well knew, Menendez knew of both the mortgage company payments and the car payments prior to 2022, and they were bribe payments, not loans. ” prosecutors wrote in the updated indictment.

The latest indictment also details a previously unknown meeting between Duybes and Nadine Menendez.

Prosecutors said Nadine Menendez asked Duives what he would say if law enforcement asked him about the payment on the Mercedes-Benz convertible, and suggested he would say the payment was a loan. “It felt good,” Nadine Menendez said, according to the latest indictment.

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