The judge presiding over the bribery trial of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has indefinitely postponed the trial of his co-defendant, Nadine Menendez, who is undergoing cancer treatment, court records showed Tuesday.
“The trial in this case is postponed indefinitely,” U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein wrote in a brief decision he signed Monday, using Latin and legal terms that mean undated.
Barry Coburn, an attorney for Nadine Menendez, declined to comment. She and her husband were indicted last year on charges of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars and cash from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for political favors, but the trial was postponed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Senator Menendez released a statement in May saying, “Nadine has grade 3 breast cancer and will require a mastectomy. I am understandably concerned about the severity and stage of the disease.”
“His top priority is his wife’s health, and he is pleased that she is being given the time she needs to focus on her treatment and recovery,” attorneys Adam Fee and Avi Weitzman said in a statement Tuesday.
Her lawyers wrote in June court documents that she “has medical devices implanted in her body and suffers from severe chronic pain.”
He added at the time, “We ask that the media and the public give her the time, space and privacy to deal with this difficult health condition while she undergoes surgery and recovers.”
The trial against her husband and two other co-defendants began in May, and the jury began deliberating the case on Friday. Both the husband and wife have pleaded not guilty.
The Menendezes began dating in 2018 and married in 2020.
