DAY TWENTY-SIX

Prosecutors have rested their case in the Justice Department’s prosecution of three-term U.S. Senator Bob Menendez on bribery and conspiracy charges. Attorneys for Menendez and his two co-defendants, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, will launch their defense on Monday morning at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse in Manhattan.

On his way out of court on Friday afternoon, Menendez said “the government hasn’t proven its case.” If jurors see it the same way, this could be the second time in seven years that the senior senator from New Jersey avoids a corruption conviction

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: An FBI forensic accountant called bullshit on Menendez’s claim that he’s been hoarding cash for decades, saying more than 20% of the cash seized from the senator’s Englewood Cliffs home didn’t enter circulation until after 2018.

DAYS SINCE THE INDICTMENT: 279

DAYS SINCE MENENDEZ’S LAST CRIMINAL TRIAL ENDED: 2,414

MISSED VOTES: 34
There were no votes in the Senate today.

And in case you’re keeping track: it’s been 43 years and 56 days since a United States Senator from New Jersey was last convicted of accepting a bribe.

DAMN FORENSIC ACCOUNTANTS AND FRED’S HABITS
— Prosecution rests in federal bribery trial of Sen. Menendez from New Jersey Monitor’s Dana DiFilippo: “Friday, prosecutors called their final witness, whose testimony seemed designed to preempt some of those defense arguments. FBI forensic accountant Megan Rafferty led jurors through financial documents that showed about $117,000 of the $552,000 the FBI seized when they searched the couple’s Englewood Cliffs home and Nadine Menendez’s safe deposit box on June 16, 2022, were bills that entered circulation after 2018. That means they were not hoarded decades ago, as the defense contends. Rafferty also testified that investigators linked 10 envelopes packed with $82,500 in cash that investigators found during those searches to co-defendant Fred Daibes, an Edgewater real estate developer and bank founder, through fingerprints and DNA. Investigators also seized about a dozen gold bars, worth $253,165, with serial numbers investigators later traced to Daibes, she told jurors. … In a ruling outside of jurors’ earshot, Judge Sidney H. Stein rejected a request by Daibes’ attorney to call witnesses who would have testified that generosity was a habit and character trait of his. A habit, Stein told defense attorneys, is setting your alarm clock or punching in to work at the same time daily. ‘Generosity is not a habit,’ he said.”

IF THE SINK DIDN’T LEAK, THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN YESTERDAY
— Prosecutors in Menendez Bribery Trial Rest Their Case by New York Times’ Benjamin Weiser and Tracey Tully: “On Friday, an F.B.I. forensic accountant, Megan Rafferty, testified about what the senator’s bank records showed about how and when money had moved in and out of his accounts. During cross-examination, the senator’s lawyer, Adam Fee, elicited testimony indicating the senator made regular $400 withdrawals over the years, seemingly intended to bolster Mr. Menendez’s public statements that he regularly withdrew cash in small amounts and stockpiled it at home for “emergencies.” Then, shortly before 1:30 p.m., after Ms. Rafferty left the witness stand, a prosecutor, Eli J. Mark, rose and said, ‘Your honor, at this time the government rests.’”

IT’S WORTH A TRY
— Prosecutors in Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial rest; Judge rejects defense request for acquittals from Associated Press’ Larry Neumeister: “(Judge Sidney) Stein rejected requests by lawyers for all three defendants that he acquit their clients on grounds that prosecutors had failed to provide sufficient evidence to the jury for it to deliver a verdict. The requests are a routine feature of trials after prosecutors rest.”

PENIAPHOBIA
— Wife’s Ex-Boyfriend and Fear of Poverty at Center of Menendez’s Defense from New York Times’ Tracey Tully and Benjamin Weiser: “ Ms. Menendez’s sister will testify about the on-again, off-again nature of the couple’s early relationship in 2018 and an ex-boyfriend who nearly derailed their courtship for good, one of the senator’s lawyers, Adam Fee, told the judge … The senator had broken up with Ms. Menendez in the fall of 2018 as a result of an overlapping relationship she was having with her longtime boyfriend, Doug Anton, during ‘the heart of the conspiracy alleged’ by the government, Mr. Fee told Judge Stein. Mr. Fee seemed to suggest that he wanted to argue that the senator and Ms. Menendez could not have been in a conspiracy together since their relationship, at least for a time, had ended. ‘“At the time they are supposed to be acting together to get the senator to betray his country, he is breaking up with her,” Mr. Fee said. ‘He is telling Nadine: ‘I’m going to cancel the trip we had planned. I want the jewelry I gave you back.’”

BOB’S SISTER SLEDGE
— Bob Menendez’s sister to testify at bribery trial about ‘family history’ of stashing cash from New York Post’s Ben Kochman; “Squirreling away boatloads of cash — it’s all in the Menendez familia. Sen. Bob Menendez’s hoarding of cash in his New Jersey home isn’t evidence of a crime — but merely an innocent part of his Cuban family’s tradition, the embattled Democrat’s sister is expected to tell jurors at his federal bribery trial. The Garden State senior senator’s older sister plans to testify to his ‘personal and family history of storing cash outside of banks’ soon after his defense case kicks off Monday in Manhattan federal court, Menendez’s attorneys said.”

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