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Businessman testifies: NJ Sen. Menendez said he 'saved your little a--' after 'bribes'
By
Nancy Solomon
Published Jun 10, 2024
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By
Nancy Solomon
Published Jun 10, 2024
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The key witness in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial testified Monday that he purchased a Mercedes Benz for the senator and his wife in exchange for help with two criminal investigations connected to his trucking and insurance companies.
And Jose Uribe testified the senator worked directly to try and clear up the investigations, saying Menendez later told him in Spanish, “I saved your little ass – not once but twice.”
Uribe was one of three New Jersey businessmen also charged in the indictment, where New Jersey’s senior senator faces 18 counts accusing him of doing favors for the businessmen as well as foreign governments in exchange for lavish gifts. Uribe has pleaded guilty to seven counts including conspiracy to commit bribery, tax evasion and wire fraud, and is cooperating with federal prosecutors in hopes of a lighter sentence.
He described an eight-month period in 2019 when he said he attended meetings at a series of Italian restaurants, first with the senator’s then-girlfriend Nadine Arslanian, and then with the senator himself. Arslanian later married the senator and is also accused of taking part in the bribery schemes.
Uribe testified that he purchased the Mercedes Benz in April 2019 and made monthly payments. He said that led to a late-night meeting in September 2019 on the back patio of Arslanian’s home in Englewood Cliffs, where he sat alone with the senator, drinking Grand Marnier while Menendez smoked a cigar.
“Mr. Menendez called to Arslanian, ‘Mon amor!’ And he rang a little bell on the table,” Uribe said.
He said the senator wanted her to bring a piece of paper and a pen.
Uribe said the senator had explained that he would be meeting with New Jersey officials in the morning about an insurance fraud investigation involving Uribe’s trucking company. Menendez asked Uribe, according to his testimony, to write down the name of his company and people involved in the criminal investigation.
“I begged him to do anything he can to stop the harm to my family,” Uribe testified in federal court in Manhattan.
The day after the discussion with Menendez, Uribe said, he was summoned to the senator’s apartment, and they met briefly in the lobby of the building. He said the senator told him it wasn’t final, but he was optimistic there would be no charges in the case.
Then, a month later, while Uribe was ironing a shirt at home, he got a call from a number with a 202 area code, he said. The 202 area code is used in Washington, D.C.
“This is Sen. Menendez, Jose,” Uribe testified he was told. “That thing that you asked me about, there is nothing there. I give you your peace.”
As he testified, his voice broke on the stand.
Uribe said he later met with Menendez and Arslanian, then the senator’s fiancée. They toasted with champagne to the end of two cases against Uribe associates, he said.
Last week, former New Jersey State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal testified that he met with Menendez at the senator’s request. Grewal, now the director of the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, testified that he did not contact his investigators or attorneys on the Uribe case and only listened to what Menendez had to say.
Uribe testified that Wael Hana, one of the other two businessmen on trial with Menendez, told him he had a connection to Arslanian and Menendez and they could help him with his case. Uribe said Hana told him he was planning on buying Arslanian a Mercedes Benz in exchange for helping his halal meat certification business . But Uribe said when Hana didn’t come through with the vehicle for Arslanian, she sought to get the car from Uribe.
During Monday’s testimony, Ricardo Solano, the defense attorney for Wael Hana, cross-examined Uribe. He asked questions suggesting Hana had nothing to do with the deal Uribe cut to purchase the car in exchange for help with his criminal case. But Uribe stood firm that he only learned about the possibility that he could pay the senator a bribe from Hana.
Menendez’s defense, according to his attorney’s opening statement, will argue the senator was concerned that Latino truckers were being unfairly targeted by the Attorney General’s Office, and that was why he contacted Grewal. But Uribe said he had not discussed that issue at a campaign fundraiser for Menendez he organized with other Latino owners of trucking companies.
Prosecutors asked Uribe about a series of texts and an invoice for the Mercedes Benz loan that was sent to a friend, who made the payments for him.
“The main reason was I didn’t want to be connected with making payments to the car,” Uribe told Lara Pomerantz, the assistant U.S, attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“Why did you do that,” she asked.
“Because I knew it was wrong,” Uribe replied.
Menendez is charged with bribery, corruption, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. The FBI seized more than half a million dollars in cash and gold bars at the Menendez home, as well as the new Mercedes Benz convertible.
In exchange for bribes from the businessmen, prosecutors allege, the senator helped Hana obtain a monopoly on halal meat certification exports to Egypt, helped that country obtain U.S. weapons, and intervened in several criminal cases involving Uribe and Fred Daibes, the third businessman indicted in the case.
The trial is expected to continue into July, and then Arslanian, now known as Nadine Mendendez, will face a separate trial because she is currently undergoing treatment for cancer.
Tagged
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new jersey
Politics
Nancy Solomon
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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