The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on Friday unveiled a three-count criminal indictment against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife on bribery charges tied to their alleged “corrupt relationship” with three New Jersey businessmen.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Friday that Menendez and his wife, Nadine, accepted luxurious bribes in exchange for using the senator’s “power and influence” to enrich the businessmen: Wael “Will” Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe.
Menendez denied wrongdoing in a Friday statement that called the allegations “baseless.”
The senator’s alleged actions also benefited the Egyptian government, according to charging documents.
“The indictment alleges that Sen. Menendez used his power and influence — including his leadership role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to benefit the government of Egypt in various ways,” Williams said during a press conference.
“Among other actions, Sen. Menendez allegedly provided sensitive, nonpublic US government information to Egyptian officials and otherwise took steps to secretly aid the government of Egypt.”
In one such instance, detailed in the indictment, Menendez requested nonpublic, “highly-sensitive” information from the State Department about people serving at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo the same day he, his wife and Hana met in May 2018.
After receiving the information, he texted it to Nadine — then his girlfriend — without informing his staff or the State Department. She passed the message along to Hana, who subsequently forwarded it to an Egyptian government official, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors also say Menendez used his influence to meddle in a New Jersey criminal investigation of Uribe and the prosecution of Daibes, the other two businessmen.
Menendez’s Senate website details actions he can’t engage in as a senator, like compelling an agency to act in someone’s favor or involving himself in criminal matters, Williams said during the press conference.
“But we allege that, behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people — the people who were bribing him and his wife,” he said.
The bribes Menendez and his wife allegedly received included “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other things of value,” according to the indictment.
When the couple’s New Jersey home was searched in June 2022, federal agents found $480,000 in cash — much of it stuffed into envelopes or hidden in clothing, closets and a safe — and more than $100,000 worth of gold bars, the indictment says.
Williams said Friday that his office’s investigation is “very much ongoing,” thanking the FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other Justice Department officials for their work on the case.
“My office remains firmly committed to rooting out public corruption, without fear or favor and without any regard to partisan politics,” he said. “That’s in our DNA. Always has been, always will be.”