Jury selection began Monday in the federal corruption trial of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, who is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bullion in exchange for domestic and foreign political favors.
By the end of the day, no jurors had been selected for the trial, which is being held in Manhattan and is likely to last until around the Fourth of July.
Menendez has represented New Jersey in Congress for 30 years, and the corruption case was brought by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. The jurors who will be asked to weigh the evidence against him and two New Jersey businessmen, Fred Dives and Wael Hana, will be from Manhattan, the Bronx or several counties north of New York City. Become a person.
All three have maintained their innocence.
At 7:30 a.m., reporters and prospective jurors lined up outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse, holding blue subpoena envelopes, waiting to be released to the public.
Inside the courthouse, Menendez passed through security just before 8:30 a.m. wearing a navy blue suit and red striped tie, with a Senate pin visible on his lapel. He greeted court officials with a smile as he passed through a metal detector.
Two hours later, he faced dozens of potential jurors filing into the boarded-up courtroom. As the proceedings continued, he appeared relaxed, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands near his waist or chest.
Mr. Menendez, 70, and the two businessmen sat quietly and talked with their lawyers, while Judge Sidney H. Stein stayed out of the courtroom for most of the day, noting prospective jurors who said they could not serve on the jury. I spent a lot of time interrogating them. trial period. About 30 prospective jurors were dismissed after the judge’s initial examination, and another 50 were called into the trial room.
Cross-examination is likely to continue on Tuesday, with the lawyers’ opening statements likely to be postponed until Wednesday.
Menendez said he expects to be acquitted and remains open to running for re-election in November.
“I am grateful to the jury for their sacrifice, time and dedication,” Menendez said after leaving the courtroom for the day.
He and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were indicted in September 2023 as central figures in a bribery scheme that lasted nearly five years.
Mr. Menendez, a former chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, steered government aid and weapons to Egypt, helped Mr. Hana’s company monopolize high profits, and worked in New Jersey on behalf of allies. He is accused of interfering with a criminal investigation.
In return, prosecutors said, the senators received a Mercedes-Benz convertible, mortgage payments, no-shows or no-show jobs for Menendez, cash and gold bars. Investigators searching his home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in June 2022 found much of the cash hidden in coat pockets, boots and a safe.
Menendez, 57, is scheduled to stand trial separately in July. Her lawyer said she had recently been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that required surgery and possibly observation and an extended recovery period. She did not attend her first day of jury selection.
The jurors, seated eight in rows, wore a sea of colors and patterns, from orange and green to plaid and stripes, in sharp contrast to the staid blue and black suits of the defendants and their lawyers.
Judge Stein began by thanking them for their service and acknowledging the tension that a lengthy trial in the middle of summer could cause. He cited John Adams, the second president of the United States, who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and also worked as a lawyer.
“John Adams wrote that government representatives and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty,” Judge Stein told prospective jurors. “I strongly believe that. If you are selected to serve on this jury, you will be part of that 250-year-old tradition.”
The trial is expected to last six to seven weeks, but could last longer.
“Real-life trials don’t work like they do on television,” Judge Stein said. “Things cannot be predicted accurately.”
Jury consultant Justin Kelly sat with Menendez’s defense team. In March, his firm DOAR was paid $150,000 for legal services from Menendez’s Senate campaign account, according to federal spending reports.
This is the second time in seven years that Menendez has been indicted and tried for public corruption.
The first trial, held in federal district court in New Jersey, ended in a hung jury in November 2017. A judge subsequently dismissed some charges, and prosecutors later dismissed the remaining charges in January 2018.
