A new indictment released Tuesday adds to the charges against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his wife.
The charges were returned by a grand jury in Manhattan and come about two months before the senator, his wife, Nadine, and two New Jersey businessmen — Wael Hana and Fred Daibes — face trial on the charges already filed against them, according to The New York Times.
A fifth defendant, Jose Uribe, recently pleaded guilty to charges that included obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit bribery. He has agreed to cooperate with the government against the senator and his wife.
Tuesday’s indictment was the third time prosecutors have added charges to the initial bribery charges filed in September. The second round of additional charges accused Menendez of serving as an agent of the government of Egypt.
Menendez was charged with a dozen new counts, according to Politico.
The charges come a day after Menendez lost a round in court seeking to suppress evidence against him, including cash and gold bars found at his home.
In the expanded indictment, the Menendezes are accused of not only writing checks to repay bribe money to others in the conspiracy but of lying about the purpose of the payments.
“Menendez and Nadine Menendez wrote checks and letters falsely characterizing the return of bribe money to Wael Hana … and Jose Uribe as repayments for loans,” a new section of the indictment alleged.
The Menendezes “caused their counsel to make statements regarding the bribe money from Hana and Uribe” which they “knew were false, in an effort to interfere with an investigation,” the indictment stated.
Should Bob Menendez resign?
The indictment also charges that obstruction of justice took place when Nadine Menendez sold two gold bars the indictment alleged were bribe payments.
Bob Menendez called the latest indictment a “flagrant abuse of power,” according to Politico.
“The latest charge reveals far more about the government than it says about me. It says that the prosecutors are afraid of the facts, scared to subject their charges to the fair-minded scrutiny of a jury, and unconstrained by any sense of justice or fair play. It says, once and for all, that they will stop at nothing in their zeal to get me,” he said in a statement.
“I have no intention of allowing overzealous prosecutors, with unlimited resources and budget, to do that to me. I am innocent and will prove it no matter how many charges they continue to pile on,” he said.
Menendez has been urged to step down from his Senate seat, but has refused to do so.
In June, either Tammy Murphy, the wife of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, or Democratic Rep. Andy Kim are expected to win a Democratic primary for the seat Menendez now holds.
A poll released Feb. 2 by Farleigh-Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, showed Kim with 32 percent support and Murphy at 20 percent. Menendez, who is in his third term as senator, totaled 9 percent support. The poll of 522 likely primary voters had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Menendez was initially charged with accepting bribes in the form of gold bars, cash, and a luxury car in exchange for political favors and for his alleged efforts to stymie a criminal investigation.
