Judge declines to throw out Menendez convictions - Legal Update
A federal judge on Friday rejected former Sen. Bob Menendez’s long shot attempt to have all the corruption convictions against him thrown out.
Legal Standoff
Menendez resigned from the Senate this summer after jurors found the New Jersey Democrat guilty of bribery, acting as a foreign agent, obstruction of justice, extortion, and conspiring to commit those crimes.
However, U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein did toss a count he found duplicative.
Judge’s Ruling
Stein’s 78-page order also did not address a separate request Menendez made for a new trial last month, after prosecutors revealed they’d inadvertently given jurors access to evidence they should not have seen. It’s unclear how the judge will handle Menendez’s request for a new trial because of that mistake by prosecutors, which was discovered only months after the trial ended.
Instead, Stein’s order Friday was responding to an August request by Menendez’s legal team that asked the judge to reverse the results of a corruption trial over which he presided.
Appeal Prospects
The chances of that happening were vanishingly slim.
“The jury’s guilty verdicts were readily supported by the extensive witness testimony and extensive documentary evidence admitted at trial, and there is no manifest injustice requiring a new trial,” Stein ruled.
But Menendez’s 150-page request in August that the judge declare him not guilty should still be read as a preview of a series of legal issues the former senator hopes an appeals court — perhaps eventually the Supreme Court — will take more seriously.
Future Legal Actions
Menendez was found guilty by a jury in July of 16 different corruption-related counts. Stein tossed one from a pair of related counts — one accusing Menendez and an Egyptian-American codefendant of bribery conspiracy and the other of conspiring to act as a foreign agent of Egypt — because they were “multiplicitous,” and the judge said he would ignore one when he hands down sentences on Jan. 29.
Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is expected to face trial starting on Jan. 21. Prosecutors have described her as a “go-between to deliver messages to and from the people paying bribes” and charged her with many of the same crimes her husband was found guilty of.
Federal prosecutors declined to comment on Stein’s ruling. Menendez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
