For the third time in six months, federal prosecutors have brought charges against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), tacking on to his indictment 12 counts including new allegations of obstruction of justice and failure to register as a foreign agent.
Menendez is charged over brazen allegations in which he took gold bars, a Mercedez-Benz, a halal meat import job for his wife, and other perks. In exchange, prosecutors say, he agreed to represent the governments of Qatar and Egypt in the Senate in addition to the people of New Jersey.
In total, prosecutors brought two new bribery counts, three new honest services wire fraud counts, three new counts of extortion under color of official rights, and then one new count each of failure to register as a foreign agent, of acting as a foreign agent while a public official, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The superseding indictment, released on Tuesday, is relatively skimpy on new details about the baroque scheme, in which the Egyptian government allegedly routed bribe payments via a halal meat import monopoly it granted to an obscure New Jersey firm which employed Menendez’s wife, Nadine Arslanian.
The new counts come days after Jose Uribe, a New Jersey businessman charged alongside the senator, pleaded guilty. He agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors as part of his plea deal.
Per the superseding indictment, Arslanian met with Uribe after the FBI conducted searches at Menendez’s home.
Uribe had been paying for a Mercedes-Benz that he had gifted Arslanian in an alleged example of bribery at the time, while the New Jersey halal company was allegedly using its monopoly-driven largesse to fund mortgage payments for a home that Arslanian owned.
Prosecutors have said that Menendez and Arslanian devised a cover story: that the money transfers were not payments, but rather loans which the couple intended to pay back in full.
Per the new indictment, Arslanian asked Uribe at the meeting “what he would say” if law enforcement asked about the Mercedes-Benz payments. “Uribe responded that he would say those payments had been a loan,” the indictment reads.
To further the alleged cover-up, prosecutors said, Menendez and his wife did return money both to Uribe and to Wael Hana, who controlled the halal import-export company. They then allegedly wrote that the payments were “for personal loan” and “car payments” on the checks.
Later, prosecutors said, both Menendez and Arslanian caused their defense attorneys to repeat the story in summer 2023 meetings with Manhattan federal prosecutors. In multiple meetings before Menendez’s first September 2023 indictment, prosecutors said, Menendez had his attorneys tell the government that much of the alleged conduct was simply about repaying loans.
Menendez and Arslanian have pleaded not guilty.
Read the superseding indictment here: