Dem. Sen. Bob "Sticky Fingers" Menendez and his lovely wife charged with bribery offenses

Democrat Senator from New Jersey Bob Menendez and his lovely wife Nadine are being charged with new bribery offenses in a federal indictment from the Southern District of New York. The indictment is to be unsealed Friday, prosecutors said.

The charges come after a U.S. Attorney Damian Williams opened a corruption inquiry last October into the seedy Democrat who has overstayed his time in the Senate since 2006 and is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“A press event will be held today at 11:00 a.m. to announce the unsealing of an indictment charging Robert Menendez, U.S. Senator from New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, with bribery offenses in connection with their corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen,” the DOJ said in a statement.

The charges he faces are conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. 

The indictment states the Menendez and his loving wife had a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen: Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes. They allegedly gave him bribes that were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the DOJ says the bribes were intended to protect these businessmen and benefit Egypt.

“Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value,” the indictment read. Federal authorities were reported to have found gold bars and cash all over the Democrat senator's home and this was traced back to the businessmen Menendez allegedly worked with.

“Over $480,000 in cash — much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe — was discovered in the home,” the indictment said. Photos included in the indictment included pictures of gold bars and hundred dollars bills that had been stuffed in clothing.

The Democrat senator is also accused of ghost writing a letter to fellow senators urging them to support an end of a hold on $300 million in military aid to Egypt. The letter that was reportedly written was in coordination with his lovely wife and the businessmen in question. 

Other aspects of the indictment focus in on Menendez’s involvement with IS EG Halal, a business that prosecutors say was used to funnel bribery payments and one of the businessman’s alleged payments for a Mercedes Benz used by Nadine Menendez.

This isn't Menendez's first bribery charges rodeo. In 2015 he was indicted on bribery charges for allegedly accepting “luxury vacations, golf outings, campaign donations and expensive flights” from Florida physician Salomon Melgen in exchange for political favors. 

A federal jury in Florida convicted Melgen in April of “67 charges for operating what prosecutors called a massive scheme that robbed Medicare out of as much as $105 million,” the Palm Beach Post reported. Menendez was never convicted after his time in court ended in a mistrial.

Prosecutors began investigating Menendez when they were tipped off in 2012 that Menendez was allegedly having sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.

His lovely wife, Nadine, had no comment about the latter child prostitute allegations.

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