A jury found a US senator guilty on all 18 counts of corruption on Tuesday after gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash were found at his home.
Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, was charged with extortion, obstruction of justice and accepting bribes to perform favours for businessmen with connections to Egypt and Qatar and will be sentenced at a later date.
The 70-year-old, who said in June he would run as an independent in November’s election, is a career politician and had led the Senate foreign relations committee until the charges were filed.
In a raid on his New Jersey home, FBI agents were said to have found nearly $500,000 (£385,000) in cash hidden around the house, as well as gold bars worth about $150,000 and a Mercedes-Benz convertible parked outside.
Defence lawyers are seeking to shift the blame to his wife, Nadine, who has also been charged but will be tried separately as she is receiving treatment for breast cancer.
Power as senator ‘up for sale’
Prosecutors alleged Menendez put his power as a top US senator “up for sale”.
After the verdict, Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, called on Menendez to resign from government.
In exchange for bribes, Menendez helped steer billions of dollars in American aid to Egypt, where Wael Hana, one of the businessmen he had dealings with, had ties to government officials, according to prosecutors.
Menendez was also accused of seeking to influence criminal investigations involving Fred Daibes, a real estate developer, and Jose Uribe, an insurance broker.
Hana and Daibes were co-defendants in the senator’s trial and were also convicted on each of the charges they faced.
Uribe pleaded guilty and testified as a prosecution witness against Menendez.
Menendez previously faced corruption charges but that case ended in a 2017 mistrial in New Jersey on a narrower set of allegations.
Defence attorneys argued that Menendez’s advocacy for businessmen in his state was standard practise for a senator, and sought to blame his wife, who prosecutors described as a go-between for bribes.
Defence lawyers noted that the gold bars were found in her wardrobe. They contended that the two lived largely separate lives and she kept her husband in the dark about her finances.
The defence also said that the senator had for decades regularly withdrawn cash from banks and stored it at his home
Storing cash at home ‘habit of Cuban parents’
His older sister testified that he picked up the habit from their parents, who fled Cuba with cash that their father had stored in a clock.
Before being charged, Menendez was an important ally in president Joe Biden’s efforts to reassert American influence abroad, rally support and money to help Ukraine, and stall advances by China.
Prosecutors said that after Hana gave Mrs Menendez a “sham job” paying $10,000 a month, the senator pressured a US agriculture department official to stop scrutinising a monopoly that Egypt had awarded the businessman’s company to certify halal meat for export.
Menendez was also accused of trying to pressure police to lay off Daibes and Uribe, who testified that he bought Mrs Menendez a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz in exchange for her husband’s help.
Defence lawyers said prosecutors failed to prove that the gold and cash found in the senator’s home were bribe proceeds.