Former Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin is expected to take the witness stand in Sen. Bob Menendez’s federal bribery trial, prosecutors said Wednesday morning.
Prosecutors said they intend to call the former Iowa senator and one-time Democratic presidential candidate as they seek to prove one of their main theories in the case: that Menendez, a Democrat, pressured high-level federal officials to help his friend and co-defendant, Dr. Salomon Melgen, resolve a billing dispute with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Melgen, a wealthy ophthalmologist from Florida, treated patients suffering from macular degeneration with a drug called Lucentis. Prosecutors say that federal regulations at the time said that the drug was approved for a “single-use,” meaning that each vial should only be used for a single eye of a single patient, but the doctor used the “overfill” from the vials to treat up to three patients — and then billed Medicare as if a separate vial was purchased for each dose.
The doctor was eventually hit with a formal demand that he repay Medicare $8.9 million in overbillings, at which point prosecutors say Menendez got involved.
The two men deny any wrongdoing and Melgen paid back the $8.9 million in 2011 as he contested the charge.
In court Wednesday, prosecutors told Judge William Walls that Harkin and a staffer will testify that they met with Menendez and Melgen about the overbilling issue in May 2011, at Menendez’s request, and were asked to intervene in the dispute with CMS. Prosecutors suggested they expect the witnesses will say they opted not to intervene and want to probe why they declined. But defense attorney Abbe Lowell said it was his understanding there was no “ask” at the meeting.
The judge declined to make any formal ruling for either side, but instead said he will deal with it “ad hoc.”
“I’m going to look forward to Sen. Harkin coming on board,” Walls added. “It will be interesting to see it.”