Washington — Attorneys for Sen. Bob Menendez on Wednesday ruled out calling witnesses, opting not to let the New Jersey Democrat testify in his own defense as he fights accusations that he exchanged political favors for gold bars and money.
As he left the courthouse, Menendez said there was “no point” in him testifying. “From my perspective, the government has failed to prove every aspect of its case,” he said.
Only a handful of witnesses testified on his behalf, while the Public Prosecution Service had called 30 witnesses during the trial, which has now lasted eight weeks.
Menendez’s defense attorneys called his sister and his wife’s sisterNadine Menendez testified Monday in a statement seeking to show that it was not unusual for the couple to keep gold and large amounts of cash in their home.
When federal investigators executed a search warrant at Menendez’s home in June 2022, they discovered more than $480,000 in cash hidden in envelopes, coats, shoes and bags, as well as 13 gold bars worth more than $100,000.
Menendez, who has pleaded not guilty, is charged with bribery, extortion, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. Nadine Menendez has also pleaded not guilty. Her trial was postponed until August, while she recovers from breast cancer surgery.
The senator’s older sister, Caridad Gonzalez, told the jury that their parents and aunt had a habit of keeping money at home after their family fled persecution in Cuba in 1951, before Menendez was born. She called the habit “a Cuban thing.”
“Dad always said don’t trust the banks,” Gonzalez said. “If you trust the banks, you never know what can happen, so you always have to have money at home.”
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She remembers finding a bunch of money in a shoebox in the Menendez home in the 1980s.
But prosecutors undermined one of the points Gonzalez made after she testified that she asked her brother to help a neighbor with an immigration problem. Prosecutors produced text messages between the senator and his sister that suggest he did not give that problem the same treatment that prosecutors say the businessmen who bribed the couple received.
The businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are on trial before the senator. They have also pleaded not guilty.
When they asked Menendez for help, he allegedly pressured a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect Hana’s halal certification monopoly and interfered with a New Jersey criminal case involving Daibes, prosecutors said.
Russell Richardson, a forensic accountant, testified that between 2008 and 2022, Menendez withdrew about $400 in cash almost every few weeks, totaling more than $150,000.
The testimony was intended to support Menendez’s statement that he had withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from his bank account over the decades because of his family’s experiences in Cuba.
Richardson testified under cross-examination that he found no evidence that Menendez withdrew $10,000 in cash at any particular time. Some of the money seized from Menendez’s home was found in bundles of $10,000, and Daibes’ fingerprints were found on some of the envelopes containing the money.
Part of Menendez’s defense strategy was blame his wifeHe claimed the senator was unaware of his wife’s financial problems and her dealings with the businessmen accused of bribing them.
Nadine Menendez’s younger sister, Katia Tabourian, testified that her sister and the senator split in late 2018 because her sister’s ex-boyfriend “caused a lot of chaos in her relationship with the senator.” Menendez’s attorneys say the couple could not have made plans during the lull in their relationship.
Tabourian confirmed that her sister locked her bedroom closet, which Menendez’s attorneys said he did not have a key to. Investigators found gold bars and cash in the closet during their search in 2022. Tabourian said it was common for her family to give cash, gold and jewelry as gifts.
Jurors are expected to hear the case late next week, after hearing testimony from Hana’s witnesses and closing arguments. Daibes’ legal team rested Wednesday without presenting a defense.
—Ash Kalmar and Christine Sloan contributed reporting.
