The wife of disgraced former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is set to go on trial next month after a judge denied her request for a second delay in her corruption case.
Manhattan Federal Judge Sidney Stein on Friday denied Nadine Menendez's request to postpone her Feb. 5 trial for several months.
Menendez's lawyers had argued that the case should be postponed because of her husband's impending sentencing.
Lawyers last week argued that media coverage of Bob Menendez's Jan. 29 sentencing could lead to an unfair trial for his wife, given that the two cases were due so close together. submitted documents requesting.
Potential jurors in her case could be influenced by what they see or hear about the punishment Menendez faces. Her lawyer argued that he was likely to receive a harsh prison sentence in a hearing that is expected to be highly publicized.
Nadine Menendez appeared in court Friday by video, and Stein denied a last-minute adjournment.
The judge had previously granted a shorter delay in starting the trial on the same grounds. Nadine was originally scheduled to go to trial just over a week before her husband's sentencing, but the case was postponed for several weeks.
Nadine, 58, and Menendez, 71, are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes, including gold bars, large sums of cash and a Mercedes convertible.
In return, the Garden State Democrat used his position as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the governments of Qatar and Egypt. The Fed said he also promoted the interests of three businessmen.
Nadine's case was separated from her husband's case after he was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and was postponed for months at a time.
Meanwhile, the three-term senator was found guilty of all charges at trial in July and could face decades in prison.
It will likely be several months before the former senator is ordered jailed. He said he would support his wife at trial.
Last week, federal prosecutors asked a judge to sentence Menendez to at least 15 years in prison, but Paul asked for a more lenient punishment, asking for only 27 months in prison.
Menendez resigned in August following his conviction.
He previously faced an unrelated corruption case in New Jersey that ended in a mistrial in 2017.
Barry Coburn, Nadine's attorney, declined to comment Monday.
