The decide overseeing U.S. Senator Robert Menendez’s corruption trial struggled on Tuesday to seek out jurors who mentioned they might pretty assess the New Jersey Democrat’s position in what federal prosecutors known as a years-long bribery scheme.
U.S. District Decide Sidney Stein in Manhattan excused 27 potential jurors from the trial, which he has mentioned may final into July, on high of greater than three dozen excused on Monday.
Although lots of these remaining mentioned when the decide questioned them as a gaggle that they may not be neutral, a few dozen steered they might not.
This mirrored their alleged bias towards or towards legislation enforcement, or problem accepting testimony from cooperating authorities witnesses who pleaded responsible to crimes, even after Stein known as utilizing such witnesses “completely authorized.”
Menendez, 70, New Jersey’s senior senator, faces 16 felony expenses together with bribery, fraud, performing as a overseas agent and obstruction, and is being tried alongside New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes.
The senator’s spouse Nadine Menendez, 57, will likely be tried individually on July 8, after her legal professionals mentioned she had a critical medical situation that would require a protracted restoration.
All 4 defendants have pleaded not responsible. A fifth defendant, insurance coverage dealer Jose Uribe, pleaded responsible in March to bribery and fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
The Menendezes had been accused of accepting a number of hundred hundreds {dollars} of money and gold bars, in addition to a Mercedes-Benz convertible, in trade for the senator’s offering political favors, and help to the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
FBI brokers who searched the Menendezes’ residence in June 2022 discovered a lot of the money hidden inside clothes, closets and a secure, prosecutors mentioned.
In the course of the group questioning, Stein requested jurors in the event that they knew any of the greater than 350 individuals, together with a number of U.S. senators, whose names may be talked about throughout the trial.
He additionally emphasised the significance to him throughout his three-decade judicial profession of discovering truthful juries.
“There are a lot of nations the place individuals don’t have a proper to have a jury of their friends to take a seat in judgment of them,” Stein mentioned. “The system will solely work if individuals are truthful and trustworthy and neutral.”
CALLS TO RESIGN
Menendez was accused of promising to assist Egypt acquire arms gross sales and different help, serving to Hana acquire a profitable monopoly on certifying halal meat exports to Egypt, and making an attempt to assist Daibes acquire hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from a Qatari funding fund.
Prosecutors additionally accused the senator of making an attempt to intervene in a federal felony case towards Daibes in New Jersey, and in state felony circumstances involving two of Uribe’s associates.
Menendez, a senator since 2006, has steered he would strive if acquitted to win a fourth full Senate time period.
However current polls of voters in Democratic-leaning New Jersey present overwhelming disapproval of Menendez’s job efficiency, suggesting that any reelection bid could be a protracted shot.
Menendez has resisted calls to resign from throughout the political spectrum, however gave up management of the highly effective Senate Overseas Relations Committee after his indictment in September.
The senator was additionally tried in a bribery case in 2017, however that case resulted in a mistrial.
Menendez’s legal professionals are awaiting a ruling from Stein on whether or not a psychiatrist can testify that the senator routinely saved money in his residence due to a “concern of shortage.”
They mentioned this was a response to the Cuban authorities’s seizing his household’s property earlier than he was born, and his father’s suicide after Menendez stopped paying his playing money owed.
Democrats and independents who caucus with them maintain a 51-49 Senate majority. Republicans hope in November’s election to flip a number of seats in races which are anticipated to be shut.
