Bob Menendez’s wife Nadine Arslanian is not a ‘mastermind’ of international crimes but an ‘obedient housewife’, her longtime friends tell the Post – Democratic senator’s corruption trial is a “submissive housewife” -After it started with Menendez throwing her under the bus.
Federal agents who raided his home in June 2022 found $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes and coat pockets and 13 gold bars worth more than $100,000, according to court documents. . The couple strongly deny the charges.
On Wednesday, Menendez’s lawyer said she had been “secretive” about her financial affairs at the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and had gold bars in a locked closet where she kept her clothes. He accused Arslanian of hiding it.
Lawyers for the 70-year-old embattled New Jersey politician described Arslanian, 57, as a “tall, beautiful, cosmopolitan woman” who grew up in Lebanon and speaks four languages. He said he calls Menendez “Amour de ma vie,” which means “love of life” in French. ” he said in his opening statement Wednesday.
But despite her husband’s description of her, friends told the Post that Arslanian was not a cosmopolitan sophisticate.
One of her longtime friends said she was “clingy” to men and regularly took her boyfriend to “girls’ nights out.” “She’s not the mastermind,” said another.
And in the months before she was indicted on corruption and bribery charges along with Menendez and three others in September, she had become increasingly “lost in contact with even her closest friends, changed her phone number and refused to meet them.” They said they felt “isolated.”
Pat Dori felt compelled to speak out after reading Menendez’s opening statement on Wednesday, in which he revealed Thursday that his wife had stage 3 breast cancer and blamed his wife for the gold. He said he no longer had any benefits.
“She’s not the Joan Collins character from Dynasty that they portray her to be,” said the British actor, who starred in the 1980s soap opera about dueling families in oil-rich Texas. Dori said, pointing to. Collins played Alexis Carrington Colby, the evil and conniving wife of an oil tycoon.
“She’s not a female Bond villain, she’s a housewife struggling to make it,” he told the Post.
“She is not capable of masterminding something like this. Yes, she was raised to obey her husband. But she is not the mastermind.”
Rather, Dori said Arslanian is cornered, has no money to pay a lawyer and is battling cancer. “She is in a tough financial situation and her friends feel she is being hit from all angles.”
Friends told the Post they were shocked when Menendez announced that Arslanian had breast cancer and was undergoing treatment, including a mastectomy.
Some fear she may not survive her own trial, scheduled for July, after her treatment is complete. Her lawyer refused.
“I’m worried that she won’t survive this situation,” Dori said. “She’s sick and she’s in a lot of trouble.”
But while the senator does not appear to be staying with her in Menendez’s modest upstairs home, friends say she is unlikely to leave him, at least during the first week of the trial. .
On Friday, he emerged from his Manhattan hotel, had a breakfast of fries and Tabasco sauce, and headed to court.
“She’s the type of person who wants to be with a man 24/7 and believes in fairy tales,” said a friend who asked not to be named.
“She’s really old-fashioned when it comes to marriage. She’s also completely naive and never gets the joke.”
Friends told the Post that Arslanian, who was divorced and had two children when she first met the senator, first started dating Menendez in 2012, but in 2018. This contradicts the official account that says they met for the first time.
“The two dated for a few months in 2012 but then moved on to other people,” said a friend. “They then dated again in 2018, but they had certainly known each other for a long time.”
Arslanian went on to date Douglas Anton, a New Jersey lawyer who once represented disgraced musician R. Kelly.
Anton said he alerted local police when Arslanian went missing in the Dominican Republic in 2018 while on a secret romantic vacation with Menendez.
“I filed a missing persons report, but I had to come to the house to make sure someone didn’t kill her and put her in the closet,” Anton told the Post last month. .
Police said they found lights on and televisions blaring in the living room and bedroom. northjersey.comciting records obtained from the Englewood Cliffs Police Department.
Anton said Arslanyan was “discovered” a few days later when he boarded a plane to the United States.
Friends advised Arslanian to marry the senator once they started dating again, mainly because Arslanian needed financial security and health insurance after suffering a head injury. Because I felt it.
“She was going through excruciating pain and we saw Bob as her light,” Dori said.
“We encouraged her to marry Bob,” said another friend. “After she met him, she put him on a pedestal. Everything was always bob, bob, bob, bob.”
He proposed in front of the Taj Mahal during a visit to the Indian Parliament.
Menendez persuaded her through other means, including appealing to her Armenian heritage and lobbying the Senate to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide, which passed in 2019.
This issue was of paramount importance to her family, especially her father, who is now 94 years old.
Arslanians He spoke on the Armenian Report podcast. It said 13 “direct members” of her family were killed in the massacre.
On December 12, 2019, Menendez announced that the resolution had been passed by the Senate, but he choked up when announcing it on television.
That afternoon, he wrote to his then-fiancée Arslanian: “In honor of truth, perseverance, and commitment to a cause greater than yourself, and in honor of my family and all those suffering. I hope my father is watching over me,” he texted. He added in Armenian script: “Never forget.”
The couple married in October 2020 at an Armenian church in Queens, New York. Another friend said many of Arslanian’s close friends did not attend the wedding due to coronavirus precautions.
“We were so happy for her,” the friend said.
But after Menendez’s lawyers accused Arslanian of bribery, friends are left wondering whether she made the right decision or whether she will remain by the senator’s side after their respective trials. Not sure.
“Sadly, her reputation has been tarnished by this trial,” Dori said. “I think she’s having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel right now.”
