(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., has attributed the alleged illegal acts at the center of his federal criminal indictment to his cancer-stricken wife, Nadine Menendez.
During opening statements in his federal trial, the senator’s defense team told the jury that Menendez was blindsided by his wife regarding the gold bars and cash allegedly found in his closet.
This defense strategy was revealed a day before Nadine Menendez announced that she is suffering from Grade 3 breast cancer, which will require a mastectomy.
Initially, Nadine Menendez was scheduled to face trial alongside her husband but was separated from the proceedings due to her medical condition. Her trial is now set for July.
“We are of course, concerned about the seriousness and advanced stage of the disease. She will require follow up surgery and possibly radiation treatment,” Bob Menendez wrote in a press release on Thursday.
“We hope and pray for the best results,” he added. “We ask the press and the public to give her the time, space and privacy to deal with this challenging health condition as she undergoes surgery and recovery.”
It is not immediately clear whether blaming his wife is part of a broader strategy to convince the jury that both are innocent of the 18 charges, which include accepting bribes, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice.
Federal prosecutors claim that Nadine Menendez served as the intermediary for the bribes, which allegedly came from Egypt and Qatar.
According to the liberal New York Times, Bob Menendez’s defense attorney, Avi Weitzman, told the jury that his client was unaware of “what she was asking others to give her,” and that he “did not know the gold bars that existed in that closet.”
The charges against the Menendez duo include receiving gold and cash in exchange for favorable policies for Egypt and Qatar, amounting to several hundreds of thousands of dollars.
