Trial begins for Nadine Menendez, wife of former US Sen. Bob Menendez

Jury selection began Tuesday in the bribery trial of Nadine Menendez, whose husband, former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, was sentenced to 11 years in prison earlier this year for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold and cash.

Nadine Menendez, 58, was originally scheduled to face trial last year with the 71-year-old Democrat, but a breast cancer diagnosis led to surgery that forced her trial to be delayed. She has pleaded not guilty to charges that she participated in the same bribery scheme that led to her husband’s conviction.

On Tuesday, Menendez groaned when she saw cameras waiting outside the courthouse as she left the first day of jury selection. Earlier in the day, she sat at the same defense table where her husband once sat before he was found guilty and sentenced.

During the process of jury selection, the judge asked the first 75 prospective jurors if a nine-week trial would be an undue burden to them. Nearly all 75 raised their hands. The judge one-by-one asked to speak with each behind closed doors to learn what their excuse was not to serve.

Bob Menendez was convicted of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in return for a variety of favors, including using his influence to help some of them in their dealings with foreign governments. The senator was convicted of acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government. He is scheduled to report to prison on June 6.

The filing of charges against Bob Menendez in fall 2023 forced him to surrender his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He resigned as a senator after his conviction.

Throughout the senator’s two-month trial, Nadine Menendez was mentioned repeatedly for her dealings with the businessmen. One of them testified that he bought Nadine Menendez a luxury car after the senator tried to get New Jersey prosecutors to drop a criminal investigation involving one of his associates.

In 2022, FBI agents raided the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home where the couple lived, discovering over $100,000 in gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes in shoe boxes, jackets and boots.

The then-senator maintained during his trial that the gold bars belonged to his wife and that the cash resulted from his habit of hoarding money because his parents escaped Cuba in 1951 with only the cash they had hidden in a grandfather clock.

On Monday, the former lawmaker took to social media to attack the Southern District of New York for putting his wife on trial soon after a surgery. Nadine Menendez’s trial had previously been postponed as she had treatment and surgery for breast cancer. Her health issues were not brought up by her lawyers in court on Tuesday.

Jury selection is expected to last another day or two before opening statements are made.