Gurbir S. Grewal, who was an appointee of Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and now could be the enforcement director of the federal Securities and Alternate Fee, advised the jury that he instantly lower off Menendez and advised him the defendant’s lawyer ought to elevate any considerations with the prosecutors concerned.
“These are long-held norms, that elected officers shouldn’t be speaking to prosecutors about pending prison issues,” he testified. He additionally stated he didn’t know the case and “didn’t need to know the case. I simply needed to maneuver on from the dialog.”
In response to Grewal, Menendez expressed concern about how the state lawyer common’s insurance coverage fraud unit was treating “Hispanic defendants within the trucking enterprise versus non-Hispanic defendants.” However, he added, Menendez didn’t make an “express ask.”
Menendez, 70, was charged with 16 felony counts, together with bribery, extortion, wire fraud, performing as a overseas agent for Egypt and obstruction of justice. He may very well be disqualified from holding public workplace and sentenced to many years in jail if convicted on all counts. The senator submitted paperwork this week to run for a fourth time period in November as an impartial candidate, telling reporters he was trying ahead to “persevering with to show” his innocence at trial.
Federal prosecutors within the Southern District of New York say the lawmaker’s spouse, previously Nadine Arslanian, was his go-between to a trio of businessmen lavishing the couple with costly presents, stacks of money and gold bars in alternate for political favors, starting in 2018 whereas the 2 had been courting and persevering with after they had been married in 2020.
Nadine Menendez is scheduled to be tried on comparable expenses in July.
Jose Uribe, a trucking and insurance coverage govt who organized a 2018 fundraiser for Menendez, pleaded responsible in March to seven felony counts, together with conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. He faces a most jail sentence of 95 years, however prosecutors in all probability will suggest far much less as a result of he is now a cooperating witness slated to offer testimony in Menendez’s trial.
He’s scheduled to take the witness stand Friday. His sentencing is predicted subsequent week.
“I agreed with a number of folks, together with Nadine Menendez, to supply Nadine with a Mercedes-Benz in return for Senator Menendez utilizing his energy and affect as a United States senator to get a good final result and to cease all investigations associated to one in every of my associates,” Uribe stated at his plea listening to, in accordance with a transcript. He additionally needed Menendez “to cease the potential investigation into one other one who I thought-about to be a member of my household.”
In response to textual content messages and voice mails gathered as proof, Uribe for months pressed Arslanian to get Menendez to quash ongoing investigations by the New Jersey lawyer common’s workplace right into a trucking govt who had been indicted on theft and fraud allegations and an insurance coverage dealer whom Uribe thought-about to be like household.
“The deal is to kill and cease all investigation,” Uribe texted one other affiliate, Wael “Will” Hana, who’s one in every of Menendez’s co-defendants.
Menendez referred to as Grewal in January 2018 and September 2019, telephone data present. The 2 then met in Menendez’s Newark workplace on Sept. 6, 2019, Grewal’s calendar signifies. Menendez’s Senate calendar didn’t embrace the assembly.
Grewal stated he didn’t inform his staff about Menendez’s outreach as a result of he needed to insulate them from the “energy imbalance” and “second-guessing” that might come up from relaying such considerations. As Grewal recalled Thursday, one in every of his high deputies attended the assembly in Newark and afterward commented, “Whoa, that was gross.”
Prosecutors allege that Menendez was doing particular favors for Uribe that weren’t accessible to his constituents. In alternate, they are saying, Uribe handed Arslanian $15,000 in a car parking zone the day earlier than she made a down cost of the identical quantity for a brand new Mercedes-Benz convertible in April 2019. A checking account on which Uribe was a co-signer coated 32 month-to-month funds on the posh automotive, every for about $900, data present. Attorneys for Uribe didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“The automotive is house,” Arslanian texted Menendez in late April 2019, attaching a photograph.
“Woopy!!!” the senator replied.
Protection lawyer Avi Weitzman had advised the jury in his opening assertion that Arslanian got here from a rich household, so it was not shocking to see her drive house in a Mercedes-Benz. Menendez’s outreach to Grewal “had completely no impact on the circumstances,” he stated. The lawmaker was merely looking for Hispanic businessmen when he requested Grewal to evaluate claims that they had been being unfairly investigated.
“You’ll agree discrimination threatens the very basis of democracy?” Weitzman requested Grewal on Thursday.
At his plea listening to, Uribe advised the choose that after receiving a subpoena referring to the senator, he met with Nadine Menendez at a resort “and he or she requested what I used to be going to say if any individual requested me in regards to the automotive funds.”
“I advised her that I might say a superb buddy of mine was in a monetary scenario, and I used to be serving to that buddy to make the funds on the automotive, and when she was financially secure, she pays me again,” Uribe stated, in accordance with the listening to transcript. “Nadine says one thing like, that sounds good.”
