New photographs admitted as evidence in the U.S. v. Menendez demo lose light-weight on discoveries designed by federal brokers all through their raid of the New Jersey senator’s home.
Nearly $500,000 in dollars and $150,000 in gold bars were being strategically hid in the course of his cluttered New Jersey residence, which includes a significant stack of expenditures crammed inside of a Timberland boot.
This 7 days, jurors ended up presented with several pictures capturing scenes inside of the Englewood Cliffs residence wherever the Democratic senator and his wife, Nadine, stay. Nadine’s trial was delayed until finally July whilst she undergoes therapy for breast cancer.
Photographs showed funds stuffed inside of designer bags and sneakers, gold bars, several cell telephones, jewelry, a cluttered closet stuffed with outfits and other things and a Mercedes-Benz that was allegedly one particular of the bribes supplied to the pair.
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The “sheer quantity of expenditures” discovered posed a problem for agents, prompting Distinctive Agent Aristotelis Kougemitros to ask for guidance, he claimed throughout Thursday’s testimony. The undertaking of manually tallying the $486,461 in expenditures proved overwhelming, necessitating the dispatch of two hard cash-counting machines from the FBI’s Manhattan office.
“I was directed that if I seized the dollars, that I required to count it in area,” Kougemitros claimed. “So, I named in reinforcements.”
Kougemitros reported the city brought in the cash-counting devices and “with all the income that we started off obtaining, we counted it all.”
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In trade for the funds, gold bars and other magnificent presents, Menendez allegedly utilized his energy as senator to benefit the governments of Qatar and Egypt and give business favors to 3 New Jersey businessmen — Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe, co-defendants in the trial.
All have pleaded not guilty other than Uribe, who agreed to cooperate with authorities and testify at the demo.
This is the 2nd time in a 10 years Menendez has been accused in a federal corruption circumstance.
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