A federal grand jury indictment accuses Democratic US Senator Robert Menendez and his wife, along with three New Jersey businessmen, of participating in an alleged bribery scheme trading international political favours and disrupting criminal investigations in exchange for cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and other gifts.
Mr Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez are charged with three counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.
Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe are charged with the first two of those counts.
The indictment outlines the senator’s role in several alleged criminal schemes, including sharing “sensitive US government information” to covertly benefit the Egyptian government, pushing US officials to secure an exclusive business deal with one of the co-defendants, and pressuring state and federal prosecutors to drop investigations.
The alleged players include a New Jersey real estate developer who was previously convicted of fraud, a halal meat certification business owner, and an associate who also has separately faced fraud charges. Mr Menendez and attorneys for his four co-defendants have all denied wrongdoing.
Robert Menendez
The 69-year-old son of Cuban immigrants was first appointed and then elected to the US Senate in 2006. He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2013 to 2015, but he stepped down as the panel’s top Democrat that year after he was federal charged for trading political favours for luxury trips, campaign donations and other expensive gifts and travel.
A nine-week trial in 2017 ended with a hung jury, and the US Department of Justice declined to retry the case after the most serious charges against him were dismissed. Mr Menendez would go on to easily defeat his Republican opponent in his re-election bid in November 2018.
From 2018 through 2022, Mr Menendez allegedly wielded his influence and access to give an Egyptian American businessman sensitive government information, then covertly wrote a letter on behalf of the Egyptian government calling on the US to unfreeze aid to Egypt.
He is also accused of asking an official with the US Department of Agriculture to halt its opposition to the Egyptian government’s allowance of a company operated by a co-defendant, Mr Hana, to have a monopoly with Egypt.
The indictment alleges that Mr Menendez sought to influence two separate criminal probes, including an investigation from a New Jersey state prosecutor into Mr Urbie’s business, and a federal investigation into Mr Daibes.
Following the latest indictment against him, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that, per the, Mr Menendez “has rightly decided to step down temporarily from his position as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee until the matter has been resolved.”
Nadine Menendez
The senator’s wife, who runs an international consulting firm, was frequently at her husband’s side when met with Egyptian officials, including discussions over the sales of US military equipment.
Ms Menendez, 56, reportedly met her husband at an IHOP restaurant and began dating in 2018, according to prosecutors. The couple was engaged a year later and married in a small ceremony in Queens in 2020.
She allegedly worked with Mr Hana to introduce the senator to Egyptian officials, and in May 2018, the senator sought sensitive information from the US Department of State regarding personnel at the US Embassy in Cairo, which he then gave to her, according to the indictment.
Mr Hana allegedly gave Ms Menendez a no-show job at his company and $23,000 in home payments to avert foreclosure proceedings, prosecutors allege.
She is accused of setting up a company – Strategic International Business Consultants – to receive alleged bribery payments. The incorporation papers were filed the same day a lender began foreclosure proceedings on the property, filings show.
In Senate disclosure forms, Mr Menendez reported that his wife owned bars of gold bullion worth as much as $250,000, which federal records show that they sold for as much as $400,000.
In March 2022, Ms Mendendez brought two one-kilogram gold bars to a jeweller, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege the serial numbers indicate they previously belonged to co-defendant Daibes.
Fred Daibes
The prominent New Jersey real estate developer, who emigarated to the US from a Palestinian refugee camp as a child, is also among defendants in the latest case to face federal charges for a second time.
He was previously charged in a 14-count federal indictment implicating him in a bank fraud scheme. Daibes pleaded guilty to a single count of making false entries in connection with a loan at Mariner’s Bank where he served as chairman.
Mr Menendez allegedly sought the senate confirmation of a nominee for US Attorney in New Jersey who would go easy on Daibes. That nominee, Philip Sellinger, ultimately recused himself from the case.
In January 2022, Mr Daibes’s driver allegedly called Ms Menendez and texted Mr Daibes: “Christmas in January.” The senator then called an official with the Justice Department overseeing Mr Daibes’s prosecution.
Wael Hana
Mr Hana, a US citizen born in Egypt who was friendly with Ms Menendez before her relationship to the senator, began operating a halal meat certification company in 2019.
That company, IS EG Hala, had obtained exclusive rights to certify halal food exports to Egypt. It is unclear how he obtained the contract, which did not require the federal government’s approval, but prosecutors’ filing suggests that his ties to the Menendez family were crucial to the arrangement.
Mr Hana’s operation is run out of a building owned by Daibes, who also has an office there.
Jose Uribe
An associate of Mr Hana, Uribe had lose his insurance brokers license after a fraud conviction stemming from accusations that he took tens of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums from seven clients but had failed to actually buy the policies.
In 2019, Mr Menendez allegedly sought to interfere with a criminal investigation connected to Mr Uribe’s trucking business facing scrutiny from New Jersey prosecutors. He allegedly contacted a senior state prosecutor “in an attempt, through advice and pressure,” to “resolve these matters favorably,” according to the indictment.
Mr Uruibe then allegedly arranged the sale of a Mercedes-Benz convertible to Ms Menendez after handing her $15,000 in cash in a parking lot.
She then allegedly used $15,000 for a down payment and lied on an application to secure loan financing. Mr Uribe later arranged monthly financing payments routed through his associates or a company he controlled, the indictment alleges.
