Menendez rests his defense in federal bribery trial

Sen. Bob Menendez, in his first words in court since his federal bribery trial started eight weeks ago in Manhattan, told the judge Wednesday that he would not speak in his own defense and rested his case after just two days of witnesses testifying on his behalf.

“I’m not seeking to take the stand at this time,” New Jersey’s senior senator told Judge Sidney H. Stein, assuring the jurist he had discussed the matter “at length” with his attorneys.

His codefendant Fred Daibes called no witnesses and rested his case Wednesday — also opting not to testify. Attorneys for Wael Hana, another codefendant, began his defense late Wednesday afternoon and expect to call one more witness and then rest Monday.

Stein told prosecutors to be ready to deliver their closing arguments Monday afternoon, and jurors are expected to begin deliberations as soon as Wednesday. The ongoing corruption trial is the Democratic senator’s second in seven years; his first ended in a hung jury in 2017.

After testimony by the senator’s sister and sister-in-law riveted jurors Monday, Wednesday was an anticlimactic end to the senator’s defense in a trial that was expected to end a week ago. Stein, as well as attorneys for all three defendants, have increasingly expressed concerns about “losing jurors” as the trial has fallen behind because of round-the-clock evidentiary disputes, late-arriving jurors, Daibes’ bout with COVID-19, and other random interruptions, like jurors getting stuck in an elevator and the jury room getting flooded by a sink left running over a weekend.

Stein on Wednesday doubled down on his frequent vows to speed proceedings up, telling Hana’s attorney Lawrence Lustberg that he won’t wait on a witness Lustberg aims to call to the stand Monday — who’s now stuck in Egypt awaiting a visa.

“We’re all going to be as efficient as possible in the use of this jury. I’m not going to significantly delay things for that issue,” Stein said. “The rule in my court is: If you don’t have a witness, you rest.”

Wednesday, several jurors dozed intermittently as Menendez’s lawyers presented their final two witnesses in their case.

Under questioning by Menendez attorney Avi Weitzman, forensic accountant David Gannaway presented texts and other documents intended to add context to rebut or at least cast doubt on prosecutors’ case.

Jurors also heard a prerecorded video deposition of attorney Michael Critchley, who represented a trucking company owner in an insurance fraud case filed by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. Prosecutors have said Hana and codefendant Jose Uribe bribed Menendez to derail the office’s prosecution of E&K Trucking owner Elvis Parra, Uribe’s friend, because Uribe worried the attorney general’s expanding probe would reach the insurance company he was running illegally. Uribe pleaded guilty in March and testified against his codefendants last month in a cooperation deal.

Critchley testified that Menendez called him in March 2019 to complain that Parra’s case was “an abuse of prosecution,” and the men agreed the Attorney General’s Office was being used by insurance companies to collect private debt.

Under Weitzman’s questioning, Critchley said the senator did nothing “inappropriate or improper” and that he occasionally talked with Menendez about criminal cases that made the news. Parra eventually agreed to a plea deal with a sentence of noncustodial probation, but Critchley said the plea offer was made because state prosecutors had “a weak case” and not, as prosecutors allege, because Menendez called and met with Gurbir Grewal, then the attorney general, in a deal with Uribe that required the senator to “kill and stop all investigation.”

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Lara Pomerantz, Critchley conceded the case did not receive much publicity and that Menendez never raised concerns about the office unfairly targeting Hispanic truckers, as the senator’s defense team has claimed.

Hana’s team began their defense late Wednesday by calling Carolina Silvarredonda, who works for Hana at his Uruguay office, to the stand.

Silvarredonda told jurors she was Hana’s assistant in September 2019 when Hana hired the senator’s wife, Nadine, to set up offices for his halal meat exporting company, IS EG Halal, as it expanded to other countries after landing a monopoly in Egypt. Prosecutors have said that it was a sham job to mask $30,000 in bribes that Hana paid the couple for the senator’s influence in helping him secure and keep his monopoly.

Silvarredonda testified that she repeatedly asked Nadine to send her information about setting up an office in New Delhi, India, but the company gave the job to someone else when Nadine didn’t send the needed information for three weeks.

“She didn’t do what she was asked,” she said.

The testimony backs up Hana’s defense that the money was payment for a job — and that he fired her when she didn’t do the job.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Daniel Richenthal, Silvarredonda agreed that she told Nadine her services were no longer needed on Oct. 17, 2019 — and that Hana wrote Nadine a $10,000 check three weeks later, despite supposedly being fired.

Lustberg wanted to call three IS EG employees to show the company now is a thriving business that exports halal beef to multiple countries.

“The impression that the government has left is that it is a completely bogus enterprise that somehow got this contract based not on merits at all, but on corruption,” Lustberg said.

But Stein barred their testimony, saying: “Whether it’s thriving or not thriving or somewhere in the middle today, is irrelevant.”

The trial now is on break for the holiday weekend and is expected to resume Monday morning.

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