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A New Jersey businessman took his star activate the witness stand within the bribery case in opposition to Sen. Bob Menendez on Friday, telling a jury he believed he had a $200,000-to-$250,000 deal in 2018 for the Democrat to strain the New Jersey lawyer common’s workplace to cease investigating his family and friends.
Jose Uribe testified in Manhattan federal courtroom within the afternoon, offering key testimony in opposition to Menendez and two different businessmen charged in a conspiracy together with Menendez’s spouse. Subsequent week, Menendez’s attorneys will get to cross-examine the naturalized U.S. citizen.
CONAWAY WINS DEM PRIMARY TO SUCCEED LAWMAKER CHALLENGING BOB MENENDEZ FOR SENATE
“Subsequent week we get the reality,” Menendez stated simply earlier than stepping right into a automobile that carried him away from Manhattan federal courtroom, the place he has been on trial for the final month. Though he typically speaks briefly in Spanish every day leaving courtroom, he made the remark about reality in English.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., leaves federal courtroom 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 within the month-old trial in Manhattan. (AP Photograph/Larry Neumeister)
Uribe, 57, who pleaded responsible to costs in a March cooperation deal, was the star witness for the federal government in its bid to win a conviction in opposition to the senator, who as soon as held the highly effective submit as chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee. He was compelled out of it after costs have been lodged final fall.
Menendez, 70, has pleaded not responsible to costs that he accepted gold bars, money and a luxurious automobile in return for doing favors for the businessmen. Two businessmen and Menendez’s spouse, Nadine Menendez, even have pleaded not responsible. Nadine Menendez’s trial has been postponed till no less than July after she was identified with breast most cancers.
Uribe testified that he was shut pals with Wael Hana, who’s on trial with Menendez, when Hana instructed him in early 2018 that New Jersey state felony investigations swirling across the trucking enterprise of a pal of his and his personal insurance coverage enterprise might be largely put to relaxation if he was keen to spend $200,000 to $250,000.
Uribe stated Hana instructed him that he would go to Nadine Arslanian, who had begun courting Menendez that 12 months, after which “Nadine would go to Senator Menendez,” though Uribe didn’t testify about how the couple might resolve a number of investigations.
Uribe stated he held a July 13, 2018, political fundraiser for Menendez, which the senator attended, elevating $50,000. He stated he attended an afterparty with Menendez and Arslanian that included cocktails, together with “some laughs, some jokes and a few dancing,” however there was no point out of the work he anticipated Menendez to do on his behalf.
“It was a crowded and loud place,” Uribe stated.
He stated 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 used to be not glad,” he stated.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Lara Pomerantz confirmed jurors a sequence of textual content messages between Uribe and Hana by which Uribe pressed his pal to get the senator to cease the felony probes.
“Please ensure that your pal is aware of about this,” Uribe wrote to Hana in a single textual content.
Pomerantz requested who he was referring to as “your pal.”
“Senator Menendez,” Uribe responded. Hana, in line with the texts, responded: “I’ll.”
Hana organized for Uribe to have dinner with Menendez and Arslanian at a restaurant in October 2018, however Uribe testified there was no point out of the deal.
“Nothing was mentioned there of worth I’ll say,” Uribe testified. “It was a pointless, a pointless assembly.”
Uribe stated he started speaking instantly with Nadine Arslanian in March 2019 and promised that he would purchase her a automobile if she delivered on the deal to get the senator to close down New Jersey felony probes.
“She agreed to the phrases,” he stated.
When the prosecutor requested Uribe what he understood the phrases of the deal to imply, he stated he understood that Nadine Arslanian would contact Menendez and get him to make use of his “affect and energy to do something potential to cease and kill” the investigations.
On Thursday, former New Jersey Lawyer Normal Gurbir Grewal testified that Menendez in an early 2019 phone name and in a September 2019 workplace assembly tried to speak to him a few felony probe. Grewal stated he adopted his coverage and refused to take action, telling Menendez to contact protection attorneys so they may attain out to trial-level prosecutors or the choose.
Uribe, of Clifton, New Jersey, pleaded responsible in March, saying throughout his plea that he gave Nadine Menendez a Mercedes-Benz in return for her husband “utilizing his energy and affect as a United States senator to get a positive final result and to cease all investigations associated to certainly one of my associates.”
Uribe was accused of shopping for the posh automobile for Nadine Menendez after her earlier automobile was destroyed when she struck and killed a person crossing the road. She didn’t face felony costs in reference to that crash.
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Menendez can be accused of serving to one other New Jersey enterprise affiliate get a profitable cope with the federal government of Egypt. Prosecutors allege that in alternate for bribes, Menendez did issues that benefited Egypt, together with ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to raise a maintain on $300 million in help.
Menendez additionally has been charged with utilizing his worldwide clout to assist a pal get a multimillion-dollar cope with a Qatari funding fund, together with by taking actions favorable to Qatar’s authorities.
New Jersey businessman testifies he promised as much as $250,000 in bribes for Sen. Bob Menendez’s assist
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