As feds closed in, Sen. Menendez’s wife cashed out, jeweler tells jury in bribery trial
FBI agents found 13 gold bars during their June 2022 search of the Englewood Cliffs home of Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine. (Courtesy of U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York)
Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife unloaded gold bars and coins worth almost $250,000 just weeks before FBI agents searched their Englewood Cliffs home in June 2022, telling her jeweler she needed money to pay bills, the jeweler testified Wednesday.
Jeweler Vasken Khorozian told jurors Nadine Menendez visited his Edgewater jewelry store three times between March and May of 2022 to sell four one-kilogram bars, worth about $60,000 each, and four 24-carat American Eagle coins worth $7,200. The first time, she told him she “had a financial situation,” but she didn’t explain her subsequent visits, he testified.
“I don’t question customers,” Khorozian said.
At the time, word had gotten out about the FBI’s ongoing corruption investigation, the senator revealed the gold bars on asset disclosure forms the Senate requires, and the couple was house hunting for multimillion-dollar mansions in Englewood Cliffs, Alpine, and Saddle River, previous testimony showed.
But prosecutors aren’t able to prove the bars were bribes from the couple’s co-defendants, businessman Wael Hana and real estate developer Fred Daibes, because Khorozian didn’t document the serial numbers on the gold Nadine Menendez brought him. Investigators have linked some of the 13 other gold bars they seized from the Menendezes’ home in June 2022 to Daibes and Hana through their serial numbers.
Khorozian said he didn’t bother recording the serial numbers because he trusted Nadine Menendez and knew she was close with Daibes and Hana, who he considered close friends.
“If I know what I know now, I would do things differently,” Khorozian said.
Wednesday’s gold bar testimony riveted jurors, who had spent the morning listening to a tedious back-and-forth with an FBI specialist about the dates on more than $486,000 in cash agents seized from the senator’s home. Some of the bills are stamped with dates from the 1990s and 1980s, which defense attorneys say shows they were stockpiled over decades by a senator distrustful of banks. Prosecutors say the stash was full of newer bills, including many that entered circulation starting in 2018, when the alleged bribery scheme began.
Khorozian told jurors he sold the gold Nadine Menendez brought him to a jeweler in Manhattan’s diamond district on 47th Street. Both men took a commission, which totaled almost $1,000 per one-kilogram bar. But she didn’t care about the loss, nor did she seem interested in the fluctuating price of gold, Khorozian said.
“You need, money you sell. You don’t need, shut up and sit,” he said.
Nadine Menendez told him the gold bars came from her family, he told jurors. Prosecutors have said it came from Daibes and Hana. Daibes wanted Menendez to use his political power to squash his federal bank fraud case and help him land a lucrative investment from a member of Qatar’s royal family, while Hana wanted the senator’s influence to retain a monopoly on halal beef exports to Egypt and intervene in a state insurance fraud prosecution and related probe threatening his friends, prosecutors have said.
Under cross-examination by Menendez attorney Adam Fee, Khorozian told jurors the senator never visited his jewelry center nor bought or sold anything to him. He also testified, under cross-examination by Hana’s attorney Ricardo Solano Jr., that Hana was a big-spender and regular customer at his store and known to give gold and jewelry as gifts to his family, friends, and coworkers. In one sale alone in June 2021, Hana spent $40,810 on 22 one-ounce gold bars, documents show.
Accusations of meddling
Jurors also heard from Vikas Khanna, the first assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
Federal prosecutors in New York have said the senator intervened in the New Jersey office’s case against Daibes, who was indicted in 2018 for bank fraud. When Menendez’s friend Philip Sellinger, who became U.S. attorney in New Jersey in December 2021, was recused from Daibes’ case because of a conflict of interest, Menendez called Khanna in January 2022. This was shortly after Sellinger named Khanna as his first assistant and the Department of Justice put Khanna in charge of Daibes’ case, Khanna testified.
The call started with small talk about Khanna’s brother, who’s a congressman from California, and Menendez congratulated Khanna on his new position, Khanna told jurors.
Then the senator complimented two defense attorneys, Khanna said.
“I know you’re going to be working cases with some really great lawyers,” Menendez told him, referencing Lawrence Lustberg and Michael Critchley, Khanna said.
Lustberg represented Daibes in his bank fraud case and now represents Hana. Critchley represented Elvis Parra, a trucking company owner whose insurance fraud case prosecutors say Hana and his friend Jose Uribe had schemed to get dismissed.
The testimony backed up prosecutors’ claims that Menendez tried to intervene in ongoing criminal matters. But under cross-examination by Daibes’ attorney César de Castro, Khanna admitted Menendez did not mention Daibes or his criminal case or ask him to intervene.
Menendez attorney Avi Weitzman further undermined Khanna’s testimony when he showed Khanna had a closer relationship with Menendez than he initially let on under prosecutor Lara Pomerantz’s questioning. Khanna initially said he’d only ever talked to the senator two or three times on brief calls. Khanna later conceded he co-hosted a virtual fundraiser for the senator early in the pandemic, along with his wife and two other Menendez supporters, that raised about $60,000.
“I did not do that personally,” Khanna said.
He also acknowledged that his brother, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, is close to Menendez.
Prosecutors are expected to wrap up their case Thursday, almost seven weeks after the trial started, with testimony from several witnesses including two more FBI agents. Defense attorneys have said their case could take a week or two to present, and then the case will go to jurors. The case is several weeks behind schedule; Judge Sidney H. Stein dismissed one juror Wednesday because she was to leave Thursday on a nonrefundable cruise with her family.
Nadine Menendez was also indicted, but Stein agreed to postpone her trial until at least August because of a recent breast cancer diagnosis requiring medical treatment.
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NEW JERSEY MONITOR
