NEW YORK – Sen. Bob Menendez's lawyers have cast him as a man who was duped by his dazzling wife, Nadine Menendez, and unaware of the gold bars and cash she kept in her locked bedroom closet – or the deals she made to get them. Now, as they prepare to rebut claims that the senator was at the center of a yearslong bribery conspiracy, they are expected to call witnesses who will describe the couple's tumultuous early relationship, Bob Menendez's parents' history as Cuban refugees and the senator's habit of storing cash at home.
After seven weeks of trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors rested their case Friday, paving the way for the defense to begin offering evidence intended to poke holes in the government's case.
Menendez, 70, and his wife, 57, are charged with taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for the senator's efforts to steer aid to Egypt, prop up an ally's business monopoly and disrupt criminal investigations on behalf of friends. The senator, D-N.J.
, is on trial, however, without his wife. A judge postponed Nadine Menendez's trial after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Nadine Menendez's sister and the senator's sister are expected to be the first two witnesses called to the stand in the senator's defense, according to a government letter filed Thursday and a courtroom exchange after jurors were excused for the day. There was no mention of the senator being called to testify in his own de.
