International Courant
A New Jersey businessman took his star function on the witness stand Friday within the bribery trial in opposition to Sen. Bob Menendez, telling a jury he believed he made a $200,000 to $250,000 deal for the Democrat in 2018 to strain the Democrat. Lawyer Common of New Jersey. workplace to cease investigating his family and friends.
Testifying in Manhattan federal court docket within the afternoon, Jose Uribe supplied key testimony in opposition to Menendez and two different businessmen charged together with Menendez’s spouse in a conspiracy cost. Subsequent week, Menendez’s attorneys will cross-examine the naturalized U.S. citizen.
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“We’ll get the reality subsequent week,” Menendez mentioned simply earlier than getting right into a automotive that took him away from Manhattan federal court docket, the place he was on trial final month. Though he usually speaks briefly in Spanish as he leaves the court docket every day, he made the remark concerning the fact in English.
Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., leaves federal court docket in New York, Friday, June 7, 2024. New Jersey businessman Jose Uribe, who pleaded responsible within the bribery case in opposition to Menendez, started testifying Friday as the important thing witness of the month. -old trial in Manhattan. (AP Picture/Larry Neumeister)
Uribe, 57, who pleaded responsible to prices in a March cooperation settlement, was the federal government’s star witness in its effort to safe a conviction in opposition to the senator, who as soon as held the highly effective put up of chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee. He was pressured out after prices have been filed final fall.
Menendez, 70, has pleaded not responsible to prices that he accepted gold bars, money and a luxurious automotive in change for offering favors to the businessmen. Two businessmen and Menendez’s spouse, Nadine Menendez, have additionally pleaded not responsible. Nadine Menendez’s trial has been postponed till a minimum of July after she was identified with breast most cancers.
Uribe testified that he was shut buddies with Wael Hana, who’s on trial with Menendez, when Hana advised him in early 2018 that New Jersey’s legal investigations surrounding his good friend’s trucking firm and his personal insurance coverage firm might be largely dropped. to relaxation if he was prepared to spend $200,000 to $250,000.
Uribe mentioned Hana advised him he would go to Nadine Arslanian, who had began courting Menendez that 12 months, and that “Nadine would then go to Senator Menendez,” though Uribe didn’t testify about how the couple was capable of resolve a number of investigations.
Uribe mentioned he held a political fundraiser for Menendez on July 13, 2018, which the senator attended and raised $50,000. He mentioned he attended an after-party with Menendez and Arslanian, which included cocktails, “some laughter, some joking and a few dancing,” however no point out was fabricated from the work he anticipated Menendez to do on his behalf.
“It was a busy and noisy place,” Uribe mentioned.
He mentioned his confidence that the deal was working pale within the fall when an investigator from the lawyer common’s workplace requested to interview his worker.
“I wasn’t completely happy,” he mentioned.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Lara Pomerantz confirmed jurors a sequence of textual content messages between Uribe and Hana by which Uribe pressured his good friend to get the senator to drop the legal investigations.
“Please ensure that your good friend is aware of about this,” Uribe wrote in a single textual content message to Hana.
Pomerantz requested who he known as “your good friend.”
“Senator Menendez,” Uribe replied. In response to the lyrics, Hana responded, “I’ll.”
Hana organized for Uribe to have dinner with Menendez and Arslanian at a restaurant in October 2018, however Uribe testified that the deal was out of the query.
“Nothing of worth was mentioned there, I’ll say,” Uribe testified. “It was a meaningless, a meaningless assembly.”
Uribe mentioned he started speaking immediately with Nadine Arslanian in March 2019, promising he would purchase her a automotive if she fulfilled the deal to get the senator to drop legal investigations in New Jersey.
“She agreed to the phrases,” he mentioned.
When prosecutors requested Uribe what he meant by the phrases of the deal, he mentioned he understood that Nadine Arslanian would contact Menendez and get him to make use of his “affect and energy to do every thing doable to cease the investigations.” cease and finish”.
On Thursday, former New Jersey Lawyer Common Gurbir Grewal testified that Menendez tried to speak to him a couple of legal investigation in a cellphone name in early 2019 and through an workplace assembly in September 2019. Grewal mentioned he adopted his coverage and declined to take action. He advised Menendez to contact attorneys so they might contact trial-level prosecutors or the decide.
Uribe, of Clifton, New Jersey, pleaded responsible in March, saying throughout his plea that he gave Nadine Menendez a Mercedes-Benz in change for her husband “utilizing his energy and affect as a United States senator to to realize a positive final result and to place an finish to all investigations referring to any of my associates.”
Uribe was accused of shopping for the luxurious automotive for Nadine Menendez after her earlier automotive was destroyed when she killed a person crossing the road. She was not criminally charged in reference to that accident.
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Menendez can be accused of serving to one other New Jersey enterprise affiliate strike a profitable cope with the Egyptian authorities. Prosecutors allege that in change for bribes, Menendez did issues that benefited Egypt, together with writing a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to raise the freeze on $300 million in assist.
Menendez has additionally been accused of utilizing his worldwide affect to assist a good friend shut a multimillion-dollar cope with a Qatari funding fund, together with taking actions favorable to the Qatari authorities.
