Jurors took around 13 hours of deliberations to reach their verdict following the two-month corruption trial at Manhattan Federal Court, determining the embattled New Jersey lawmaker accepted almost half a million dollars in cash, $150,000 worth of gold bars, a luxury convertible, flashy watches, and Formula 1 tickets in exchange for abusing his position as chair of the powerful Senate Relations Committee.
The panel found Menendez’s co-defendants, businessmen Wael Hana guilty of all his six charges and Fred Daibes guilty of all seven of his charges.
In their sprawling case, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office detailed how Menendez “put his power up for sale” from 2018 to 2023, accepting gifts in exchange for coercing state and federal prosecutors in New Jersey to get his friends off the hook in their criminal cases, providing privileged information to associates in Cairo, pressuring officials in the U.S. government to help Hana maintain a monopoly over halal meat imports from Egypt and working to advance Qatari business interests.
