When Senator Robert Menendez was charged final 12 months with corruption after investigators discovered $486,000 in money stashed round his home in New Jersey, he supplied a easy, “old-fashioned” rationalization: It had been his customized to withdraw money from a private financial savings account to maintain at house, a behavior he discovered from his Cuban immigrant dad and mom.However federal prosecutors, in papers filed late Friday, offered contemporary particulars that they recommended undercut Mr. Menendez’s declare. A number of the money was wrapped in bands exhibiting it had been withdrawn, at the very least $10,000 at a time, from a financial institution the place Mr. Menendez and his spouse “had no known depository account.” This, prosecutors stated, indicated “that the money had been provided to them by another person.”Just lately, Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals had requested a decide to exclude a lot of the money found within the house as proof when the senator’s trial in Manhattan begins subsequent month, arguing that there was no proof the cash was linked to against the law. The prosecutors’ Friday submitting was in response to this request.The difficulty of the money cuts to a vital theme of the federal government’s case: that the senator and his spouse, Nadine Menendez, had a way of life that was above their means and funded by bribes.A federal indictment says that the money, together with gold bars and different beneficial gadgets, had been “fruits” of a bribery scheme. A lot of the money discovered within the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., was found in a bed room closet, prosecutors stated of their submitting. Extra money was present in a duffel bag in an workplace, in a bag on a shelf above a coat rack within the basement, within the pockets of males’s jackets hanging on the coat rack, and inside footwear underneath jackets. As well as, greater than $70,000 was present in a secure deposit field maintained by Ms. Menendez, the federal government stated.Mr. Menendez, 70, and his spouse are accused of accepting bribes in trade for the senator’s willingness to make use of his political affect to disrupt felony investigations in New Jersey and to assist the governments of Egypt and Qatar. The Menendezes and two New Jersey businessmen charged within the scheme have all pleaded not responsible.Mr. Menendez, the previous chairman of the highly effective Senate Overseas Relations Committee, and the 2 businessmen are anticipated to be tried collectively, beginning Could 6 in Federal District Courtroom in Manhattan. The senator has refused widespread requires his resignation and has stated that he hopes to run for re-election in November as an impartial if he’s exonerated.Prosecutors have stated that at the very least 10 envelopes of money present in searches of the senator’s home and a secure deposit field, containing greater than $80,000, bore the fingerprints or DNA of one of many businessmen additionally charged within the case. They stated gold bars had additionally been tied to the businessmen.Mr. Menendez’s legal professionals had no touch upon Saturday. However in courtroom papers, they’ve stated they had been attempting to bar prosecutors from telling the jury solely about money that had no clear hyperlink to an alleged co-conspirator. “The government should not be permitted to try to sway the jury with dramatic presentation of valuable items bearing only a speculative connection to any charged offense,” they wrote.The decide, Sidney H. Stein, dominated Thursday that Ms. Menendez, 57, will probably be tried individually, after her legal professionals stated she had a newly recognized medical situation that may require a surgical process and probably a prolonged restoration. The decide set a tentative July trial date for her.Final September, Mr. Menendez, who was born in the US, supplied a proof for at the very least among the cash discovered of their house, tying it to his household’s roots in Cuba within the years earlier than Fidel Castro seized management.For 30 years, Mr. Menendez stated, he had withdrawn 1000’s of {dollars} in money from his private financial savings account, protecting it “for emergencies.” He stated the behavior stemmed from a “history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”“This may seem old-fashioned,” he added, “but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years.”The following month, in an interview with PBS, Mr. Menendez elaborated, stating that he had withdrawn $400 in money each week for “the better part” of three many years.
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