At Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial, prosecutors highlight his wife’s desperate finances

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors at Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial showed jurors hundreds of texts, emails and phone calls over two days that show his girlfriend-turned-wife’s desperate financial situation before New Jersey businessmen she had long known came to the rescue.

Prosecutors elicited the evidence through the testimony of an FBI agent for a second day Wednesday as they sought to show that Menendez, 70, conspired with three businessmen and his wife, Nadine Menendez, 57, in a bribery scheme that enriched the couple with gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a luxury car.

The Menendezes and two of the businessmen have pleaded not guilty, while the third pleaded guilty and is scheduled to testify. Nadine Menendez’s trial was postponed until July after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Through the long presentation of communications that was expected to continue into Thursday, prosecutors have sought to trace the relationship between Menendez and the woman he began dating in early 2018, known then as Nadine Arslanian.

Prosecutors say the trajectory of the relationship coincided with a bribery scheme that led the senator to help one businessman and codefendant, Wael Hana, win an exclusive contract with Egypt to certify all meat exported there from the United States as meeting religious requirements, while aiding two other businessmen financially and by helping them obtain favorable results with criminal cases in New Jersey.

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