New Jersey
Did he take bribes, or was he duped by his wife? Arguments under way in Menendez trial • New Jersey Monitor
After a slow start, Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption trial hit warp speed Wednesday, with the defense team using opening arguments to blame everything on his wife and ending the day by demanding a mistrial.
With 12 jurors and six alternates seated after two and a half days of questioning, the case kicked off after lunchtime with prosecutor Lara Pomerantz methodically outlining the 18-count indictment against Menendez — a Democrat and New Jersey’s senior senator — and two of his co-defendants, businessman Wael Hana and Edgewater real estate developer Fred Daibes.
“For years, Robert Menendez abused his position to feed his own greed and to keep his wife happy,” Pomerantz said. “Menendez put his power up for sale, and Hana and Daibes were more than happy to buy it.”
But defense attorney Avi Weitzman told the jury that there were “innocent explanations” for all of prosecutors’ accusations, and he quickly cut to what might be the heart of his defense — Menendez’s claim that his wife, Nadine, kept him in the dark about the gold bars, cash, luxury car, and other bribes she allegedly took from Hana, Daibes, and a third co-defendant Jose Uribe, who pleaded guilty in March.
“The real question for you is: What did Bob know?” Weitzman told the jury.
Daibes and Hana are standing trial alongside Menendez, and their attorneys are expected to deliver their opening statements Thursday morning. Nadine Menendez was charged too, but U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein previously postponed her trial to July because she has a medical issue.
The senator’s wife
Despite her absence in the courtroom in Manhattan, Nadine Menendez loomed large over the trial Wednesday, with both prosecutors and the senator’s defense team repeatedly referring to her and her role in a bribery scheme that prosecutors say stretched back to 2018, when the couple began dating and a year after Sen. Menendez’s last corruption trial ended with a hung jury.
Pomerantz painted her as the insulation Menendez put between himself and his alleged benefactors, saying Nadine’s role as go-between gave the senator plausible deniability.
“Menendez was careful when he was committing crimes,” she said. “He was smart enough not to send too many texts. Instead, he had Nadine do that for him.”
Weitzman, though, portrayed her as a greedy manipulator who took gold, cash, and other bribes without her husband’s knowledge. The couple had separate finances, lived separately until April 2020, and have largely led separate lives since then, and FBI agents found all the gold bars in her locked closet, Weitzman said.
While the 70-year-old senator knew his wife had gold bars, he thought they were an inheritance from her family, who had built a fortune in the Persian rug business, he added. Instead, he said, Nadine had always been financially supported by other people, including a previous husband and by her wealthy family, and consequently “tried to get cash and assets any which way she could,” Weitzman said.
“I’ll acknowledge it smells a bit weird,” he said of what he called “the green and gold elephant in the room.”
Besides gold, investigators also found more than $400,000 stuffed in envelopes, jacket pockets, and shoes all over the couple’s home. Weitzman attributed that hoarded cash to the senator’s habit — forged after his family fled with nothing from Cuba in the 1950s — of making monthly withdrawals of $400 to $500 for decades and keeping the cash at home.
Prosecutors say the riches were corrupt payments for official actions that only a senator could deliver.
“Quid pro quo — this for that,” Pomerantz repeated throughout her opening statements.
Specifically, prosecutors have accused Menendez of taking gold, cash, and a no-show, “sham job” for Nadine Menendez from her longtime friend Hana to help Hana secure a monopoly on importing halal meat to Egypt.
“Hana didn’t actually have any experience in this business, but what he did have was a U.S. senator in his pocket,” Pomerantz said.
In exchange, Menendez also provided sensitive information about staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and even ghost-wrote a letter from an Egyptian official to U.S. lawmakers who had held up millions in military arms and aid to Egypt over concerns about human rights abuses there, prosecutors allege.
Menendez also tried to disrupt the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey’s prosecution of Daibes and a fraud investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office involving Uribe, an insurance broker who was friends with Hana, prosecutors said.
In exchange, Uribe gave Nadine $15,000 in cash in a parking lot as a down payment on a $60,000 Mercedes Benz convertible and continued to make monthly payments afterward for years, Pomerantz said.
“This was not politics as usual. It was politics for profit,” she said. “Robert Menendez was a United States senator on the take, motivated by greed and focused on how much he could put in his own pocket, and in his wife’s pocket.”
Weitzman insisted prosecutors were “wrong, dead wrong.”
Menendez took no bribes and never acted as a foreign agent for any government, he said.
“The actions Senator Menendez took were actions on behalf of constituents,” he said.
His interactions with Egyptian and Qatari officials were merely him “engaging in diplomacy on behalf of the U.S. government,” he added.
Weitzman urged jurors to remember Menendez’s long history of public service. Menendez has served in the Senate since 2006, in the House from 1993 to 2006, and in the New Jersey Legislature and Union City politics before that.
“He’s an American patriot,” Weitzman said.
About that mistrial motion
Stein rejected defense attorney Adam Fee’s argument that Pomerantz tainted jurors during her opening statements by implying that Menendez agreed to publicly support Qatar to help Daibes land an investment from a member of Qatar’s royal family in exchange for gold bars and cash.
Fee accused Pomerantz of violating Stein’s order that prosecutors couldn’t discuss the substance of a resolution supporting Qatar that Daibes allegedly urged Menendez to introduce to help him secure the investment.
“This is angels dancing on the head of a pin, your honor. They are injecting this case with that inference,” Fee said.
But after a heated back-and-forth between Fee and prosecutor Daniel Richenthal, Stein denied the mistrial motion.
“There’s no basis for it,” he said.
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In November, 2028 ATH Jaisier Gray received his first Power 4 offer from Syracuse.
The offer added to a list that includes Temple and Delaware State, and the Orange have been in consistent touch since then. Gray got a closer look at Syracuse on April 9 for spring practice, and it was a chance for him to get to know the program better.
“The visit was an all around great experience,” Gray said to The Juice Online. “Not because we were in the college practice facility. But being able to interact with players and coaches and experience meetings first hand.
“Then to be able to see the competition and the love shared between the players pushing each other to be better and strive for greatness, was the best way for recruiting. This allowed for me to get a real feel to how the next level operates and being able to mentally prepare myself for when the time comes.”
Gray gets to know the SU staff better
Among the coaches he got to meet with was defensive line coach John Scott Jr.
“We spoke about how he got to evaluate my film,” Gray said. “We also talked about me coming back up to Syracuse to their big man camp so he could get the chance to teach me in person. Not only that but we also spoke about so factors that helped me gain weight since the last time I visited and what am I doing in the offseason to develop my skills as a player.”
Gray also appreciated seeing the culture of the Orange.
“I found the program really strong minded and influential,” Gray said. “The determination to make their players the best, not only athletes but people they can be. This action invites a very mentoring aura to it. They are very family oriented with a lot of coaches and players sharing great bonds, with common knowledge and experience.”
Gray respects D.A.R.T.
Among the culture at Syracuse includes head coach Fran Brown’s mantra of D.A.R.T. (detailed, accountable, relentless, tough).
“I respect it due to me being an athlete who takes my sport very serious, D.A.R.T. is the type of mindset that coaches love and players who want to be great but into,” Gray said. “Being Determined, staying Accountable, playing Relentless, and showing how you’re Tough is the way to play. This ideal eliminates the “losing mentality” and keeps you locked in and working always.”
As a result, Gray thinks highly of his SU offer.
“I felt extremely honored but worthy at the same time,” Gray said. “I knew that this accomplishment was a blessing but it was earned through hard work and dedication. Not just in the field and making plays as a young star but also studying and making sure my grade are up to par.”
His Indians team went 6-3 in the 2025 season, and he’s looking to show this fall that he’s continued his improvement.
Gray is a two-way, two-sport athlete
“My 2025 football season was a big step for me,” Gray said. “I showed a lot of growth, both physically and mentally, and I feel like my game slowed down in a good way, I was reading plays better and playing more confident. I had some strong moments, but I also saw where I need to improve, especially in consistency and finishing plays. Overall, I’d say it was a solid season, but not my peak yet. It motivated me to lock in even more, because I know I can take it to another level.”
The Newark (NJ) Weequahic athlete is a two-way player who plays both offensive and defensive line, but he is being recruited on the defensive side of the ball. He is also a two-sport athlete, excelling on the basketball court with his 6’7” 250-pound frame.
“I’m the type of player who plays fast, strong and disciplined,” Gray said. “I take pride in every play throughout the game, no matter where I’m positioned on the line. I’m a very physical and high motored kid who can play both inside and outside setting the edge.
“I try to outwork anybody and be the best at all times, but also staying humble and knowing there’s something ti learn and someone’s who’s better than me. Being naturally gifted with length I use these strengths to my advantage and focus on my technique. Overall I’m a versatile lineman who can do the dirty work, be a leader( by example or verbally), be accountable, and still impact the game positively when my number is called.”
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As the University moves to cut employee benefits amid rising healthcare costs, officials in the Municipality of Princeton and across Mercer County are confronting similar budget pressures. Mercer County has already taken steps to reign in spending on the state health plan.
The State Health Benefits Program (SHBP) for local governments, which is used by around 55 percent of New Jersey’s eligible employers, saw a 36.5 percent increase in cost last year, with further double-digit increases expected this year, pushing some entities to take their employees off the state health plan.
Mercer County, which contains Princeton, began pulling its employees out of the SHBP last year. In his budget address on March 26, Mercer County Executive Dan Benson said that the county worked with its unions to find a different, cheaper option with the same benefits. He added that the county will work with “other county agencies,” including the Mercer County Improvement Authority, to move more employees off the SHBP.
“Thanks to that partnership, we were able to reduce the expected increase in health care costs for active employees from approximately 31 percent over prior year cost to approximately 17.5 percent annualized,” Benson stated in the address. However, he noted that healthcare costs are rising significantly across the board, resulting in a $12.3 million cost increase overall.
In a statement to The Daily Princetonian, Theodore Siggelakis, director of communications and intergovernmental affairs of Mercer County, wrote that year-over-year SHBP cost increases have made the program unsustainable for both the county and the employees. “By transitioning to a new plan, we were able to reduce projected [healthcare cost] increases by 13 percent,” Siggelakis wrote.
The Municipality of Princeton is still on the SHBP, despite learning last year about the expected increase in the state plan premium. According to councilmember Brian McDonald ’83, an alternative private plan the municipality considered would have increased premiums by more than 20 percent, still significantly less than the recent 36 percentage point cost increase in the SHBP. However, discussions with the municipality’s police, fire department, and public works unions did not conclude in time to switch plans last year, according to McDonald.
“We are currently beginning the process of looking for an alternate health insurance plan for 2027, and if we can find one, we will begin conversations with the unions much earlier this year,” McDonald wrote to the ‘Prince.’
“In the case of health insurance, 36 percent this year. That alone, as you will see, is about $1.9 million higher than it was last year,” McDonald said at the March 23 Princeton Council meeting. “If we just pass that expense on to taxpayers, it would require a one-year increase of 6 percent. So we’ve had to work extremely hard and again make very challenging choices.”
At the March 23 meeting, the municipality’s Chief Financial Officer Sandra Webb shared that the current proposed budget would increase the municipal tax rate by 2.87 percent.
Although the municipality of Princeton remained on the SHBP this year, McDonald wrote that the “recent level of health insurance increases is totally unsustainable” in the long term. He added that if increases cannot be curbed, “there really are only two options: pass the increases at all levels of government on to taxpayers, who already pay some of the highest property taxes in the country, or reduce services and, potentially, staff levels.”
Princeton Public Library is also still on the state plan. The library is also facing challenges with its budget — in January, it shortened its hours by one hour each day due to increased operational costs. Currently, the library is seeking greater funding from Princeton municipality in the municipal budget and is in negotiations with the Princeton Council.
“As a public institution, Princeton Public Library has limited options for trimming our health insurance costs,” Jennifer Podolsky, executive director of the library, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “We did eliminate the most expensive employee plans as a cost-saving measure last fall, and … trust me, we have explored every other coverage option available to us. The SHBP is still the most cost-effective.”
Princeton Public Schools (PPS) is not enrolled in the School Employees’ Health Benefits Program (SEHBP) — the SHBP plan for public schools — because of a cheaper cost offered by their private insurance plans. In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ PPS Superintendent Michael LaSusa wrote that the rising costs of health benefits are “largely passed on to the taxpayers through the local tax levy increase,” which is the focus of their current budget discussions.
At the district’s March 17 Board of Education meeting, LaSusa explained that the total premium increase for the SEHBP was 31.9 percent, including a prescription cost increase of 58.6 percent. Since PPS is privately insured, their projected total premium increase, including prescription costs, was 15.2 percent.
According to a March press release from the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, some entities with “lower-cost employees” who use fewer health services are switching to cheaper plans, leaving “higher-cost” employees to make use of the plan but with less premium revenues to cover the cost.
This exodus of lower-cost entities from SHBP has further increased burdens for employers still on the program. In a May 2025 report about the SHBP, the Treasury noted that, although the program was initially designed to offer “affordable, high-quality coverage to public employees,” the program is no longer financially viable partly due to declining enrollment.
This and various other factors, according to the report, “have created a self-reinforcing loop of premium increases and employer exits — what actuaries commonly refer to as a ‘death spiral.’”
It remains unclear how extensively University employees will be impacted by benefit cuts. In a memo about general benefits cuts in February, Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright and Provost Jennifer Rexford ’91 wrote that the University would be cutting employee benefits and limiting pay raises, citing “dramatically rising costs of medical and prescription benefits.”
They added that “forthcoming changes to the University’s benefits offerings” have been previewed, and that these changes were “made necessary by dramatically rising costs of medical and prescription benefits here and nationwide.”
Elizabeth Hu is a senior News writer, assistant head Copy editor, associate Data editor, staff Podcast producer, and contributing Features writer from Houston. She can be reached at exh[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
Oliver Wu contributed reporting.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
Spring fever heats up Seaside Heights beach and boardwalk in April
Warm weather draws crowds to the Seaside Heights boardwalk and beach on April 15, 2026.
Ready to take a stroll on the best boardwalks along the coast?
According to USA TODAY 10BEST Readers, the Garden State has three. Vistors planning to travel to Shore will bask in the golden days of summer at 3 of best boardwalks New Jersey has to offer where good food and fun meet.
The USA TODAY 10BEST Readers’ Choice Awards is an annual survey designed by panel of industry experts to nominate their favorite attractions across a wide range of categories in which 10Best editors nominate contenders to the public for a winning vote.
Three New Jersey beaches were voted on the list by readers. And here’s what editor’s said about Wildwood, Atlantic City and Point Pleasant Beach:
No. 1 Wildwood
Originally a 150-yard boardwalk at its inception in the 1890s, the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey, now stretches for 38 blocks and is packed with shops, restaurants, bars, water parks, and an amusement pier featuring over 100 attractions.
This is the second year in row that Wildwood has topped the list.
No. 5 Atlantic City
The Atlantic City Boardwalk ranks among the most famous in the nation. Built in 1870, the boardwalk is lined with everything from high-end retailers to classic candy shops, casinos, and beach bars, all with ocean views.
No. 10 Point Pleasant Beach
Point Pleasant packs an incredible amount of fun into its mile-long boardwalk. Jenkinson’s Aquarium and Boardwalk Amusements are the crown jewels of this Jersey Shore venue, though there are classic arcade games, local eateries, an antique emporium, and plenty of gift shops too. The nightlife scene transforms the area into a colorful evening playground where visitors can enjoy live music, comedy shows, and fun bars and restaurants.
USAT 10BEST Readers’ Choice Public Spaces: Best Boardwalk
- Wildwoods Boardwalk (Wildwood, New Jersey)
- Kemah Boardwalk (Kemah, Texas)
- Ocean City Boardwalk (Ocean City, New Jersey)
- Carolina Beach Boardwalk (Carolina Beach, North Carolina)
- Atlantic City Boardwalk (Atlantic City, New Jersey)
- Venice Beach Boardwalk (Venice, California)
- Ocean Beach Park Boardwalk (New London, Connecticut)
- Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (Santa Cruz, California)
- Virginia Beach Boardwalk (Virginia Beach, Virginia)
- Boardwalk at Point Pleasant Beach (Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey)
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