Nadine Menéndez was sentenced Monday for cooking A crooked scheme With her dishonor senator from her husband, Senator Bob Menéndez-to Pocket Gold Bars, a Mercedes-Benz and other bribes.
The jury members found that the 58 -year -old resident in federal bribery and conspiracy conspiracy positions followed about eight hours of deliberations approximately two days.
It arrived months after Bob Menéndez’s conviction for Your role In the corruption web expansion, in which the couple pushed their high position from the Senate to align their two pockets.
The Garden State Democrat resigned his position in the Senate and is ready to inform the prison in June to comply with an 11 -year sentence.
Nadine was the “intermediary” that connected Bob with entrepreneurs who channeled the bribes of the Egyptian governments and Qatar, manhattan federal prosecutors said.
In return, Pilloried took advantage of its powerful position as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to press colleagues to defrost $ 300 million in Egyptian military aid that had been judged.
“What else can the love of my life make for you?” Nadine told an Egyptian official while sitting next to her duration of my husband who pushed cigarettes a May 2019 dinner in Morton’s Steakhouse, revealed the evidence.
The former Garden State insurance corridor, José Uribe, testified that he bribed Nadine with a New Mercedes-Benz C-300 In exchange for the husband’s help, close a criminal probe.
“Congrratulations mon amour de la VI, we are the proud owners of a Mercedes 2019,” he sent a text message to her husband after receiving the first payment towards the new car, using the French phrase for “love of my life.”
The FBI agents who raided Morswood Hills’s house of the couple found the luxury car parked in their garage, and more than $ 150,000 in gold bars stored inside Nadine’s Safe. Jury He saw more than $ 400,000 in cash in envelopes and scattered around the home, including the official Windbreaker of the former senator.
When the bribes took the Uribe businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, “put the power of the senator for sale,” prosecutors said, calling her “partner in the crime.”
“The defendant helped Robert Méndez put his power at stake,” said prosecutor Paul Monteleoni in his final statement. “You saw a clear pattern of corruption again and again.”
Nadine Been dating the senator in early 2018, when she was known as Nadine Arslanian. The plan advanced shortly after, even with Hana, whom Nadine had met for years before meeting her husband. Nadine and Bob married in 2020.
Nadine Menéndez faces the possibility of decades in prison, but it is more likely to be beaten with a sentence somewhere in the range of 11 years after bars imposed on her husband in January.
Bob Menéndez convinced Judge Sidney Stein to delay his prison period until June 6 so that he could “help” his wife to last his trial, but the criminal of the offender did not include Attend your judgment in person.
Originally, Nadine had been judged along with her husband, Hana, and Daibes, who were convicted, but her judgment was retired after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Hana was a sentence to serve eight years in prison, and Daibes was beaten with a 7 -year prayer.
Uribe will be sentenced at the end of this year after declaring himself guilty and cooperated with the government.
Nadine’s lawyer argued without success in the trial that the federals did not prove that she had the request for “knowledge” or “intention” to commit crimes.
