Prosecutors recommend delaying the bribery trial of Sen. Bob Menendez from May to a summer date

NEW YORK (AP) — The May bribery trial of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez should be postponed until July or August after it was learned that the New Jersey Democrat’s wife, a co-defendant, has a serious medical issue, prosecutors said Wednesday.

In a letter to the trial judge, prosecutors said delaying the May 6 trial to a date this summer was a better prospect than separate trials requested by Nadine Menendez’s lawyers.

On Tuesday, her lawyers notified the court that a newly diagnosed and serious medical condition that requires surgery in the next six weeks prevented her from working with her lawyers in the short term. They requested that she be tried separately at a later date.

They wrote that she was diagnosed with a medical condition requiring “a surgical procedure,” along with “possibly significant follow-up and recovery treatment.”

Details of her medical condition were not revealed in court papers.

Menendez, his wife and two businessmen have pleaded not guilty to charges that they participated in a bribery scheme in which prosecutors say cash and gold bars were given to the couple in return for favors that the senator would carry out.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«READ MORE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> READ MORE </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife cites need for surgery in request to delay her trial </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Sen. Bob Menendez decides not to delay May trial with appeal of judge’s ruling </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> In New Jersey, some