New Jersey businessman admits to bribing Sen. Bob Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz

A New Jersey businessman testified on Friday that he bribed Sen. Bob Menendez, telling a jury in the New Jersey Democrat's bribery trial that he gave the lawmaker's wife a Mercedes in exchange for his influence.

Jose Uribe, who pleaded guilty in March and is cooperating with prosecutors, was asked on the witness stand whom he bribed. Uribe told the jury that he had bribed Menendez, and conspired with another businessman Wael Hana. Uribe also said that the senator's wife, Nadine Menendez had accepted the bribes he paid. The senator, his wife and Hana have all pleaded not guilty.

Menendez and his wife are charged with accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes — some of it in the form of gold bars — in exchange for official acts from Menendez as senator.

A spokesperson for Menendez declined to comment on matters related to the trial. An attorney for the senator did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz had argued before a panel of 12 jurors and six alternates in New York at the start of the trial last month that the New Jersey Democrat abused his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to “put greed first” and referred to the senior senator as both "powerful" and "corrupt."

In the defense's opening statement, an attorney for Menendez, Ari Weitzman, said that his client had not violated the law.

“There won’t be a single piece of tangible evidence the senator accepted a bribe. There is an innocent explanation for the gold and the cash," Weitzman said.

Menendez has served in the Senate since 2006. He stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shortly after he was indicted in September but has