BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 9. A pro-Armenian US senator is accused of bribery and influence peddling, TurkicWorld reports via the ABC TV channel.
Menendez, reaching the home stretch of his trial, is in hot water for allegedly taking bribes of gold bars, cold hard cash, and a fancy Mercedes Benz in return for pulling strings to meddle with law enforcement investigations into New Jersey businessmen, all while moonlighting for the Egyptian government.
Assistant US Attorney Paul Monteleoni filed the relevant charge during the July 8 trial.
"Robert Menendez, the senior US senator from the state of New Jersey, the ranking member and then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, put his power up for sale," Monteleoni said during a closing argument.
He drove home the point that Menendez's actions are a textbook case of corruption.
"It didn't satisfy his appetite to be one of the big fish in Washington. Menendez had a hunger for power, and he was also itching to line his pockets and feather his nest alongside his wife," the assistant attorney added.
During the trial, the jurors got an eyeful of the gold bars that were confiscated from Menendez's home in New Jersey back in June 2022.
The FBI also found over $480,000 in cash, most of which was enveloped and hidden in clothes and boxes.
Besides, more than $70,000 in cash was seized from safe of his wife, Nadine Arslanian-Menendez.
Menendez, 70, has stuck to his guns and pleaded not guilty to 16 criminal charges brought against him, including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent, and obstruction of justice.
The senator's wife was not in court because of cancer, and she will face the music separately in August.
The list of bribery charges is related to actions taken by the senator, such as providing services to the governments of Egypt and Qatar in the course of his official duties, as well as assisting three New Jersey businessmen - Fred Daibes, Wael Hana, and Jose Uribe - in obtaining illegal profits.
The senator has been found to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold, mortgage payments, and a luxury vehicle as bribes.
During his nearly two decades as a member of the Senate, Menendez has been indicted on corruption charges in a federal criminal prosecution for the second time.
Due to the jury's incapacity to render a verdict, the previous investigation concluded in a mistrial.
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