Attorneys offered jurors their closing arguments Thursday in the federal corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez and wealthy ophthalmologist Dr. Salomon Melgen, urging the jury in a final salvo to use their “common sense.”
“Senator Menendez held himself out as putting New Jersey first. Dr. Melgen came calling with a better offer,” federal prosecutor J.P. Cooney told jurors.
“Robert Menendez may have been elected to represent New Jersey, but Robert Menendez chose instead to represent the wealthy doctor from Florida — he was Salomon Melgen’s personal US senator,” Cooney added.
“This is what bribery looks like,” he said.
Prosecutors say the New Jersey Democrat pressured high-level officials in the Obama administration and other career diplomats to help Melgen resolve his business disputes in exchange for political contributions, a luxurious hotel suite at the Park Hyatt in Paris, and free rides on Melgen’s private jet that the Menendez failed to report on his Senate disclosure form.
Addressing the jury for nearly an hour and a half, Cooney used his closing to preemptively rebut many of the arguments defense attorneys have offered as reasons the jury should acquit and weave together a narrative of a long-running corruption scheme with the assistance of slides, photos and emails projected on a jumbo screen.
“Don’t let the defendants use their friendship as a camouflage for their bribery,” Cooney said. “(Menendez) should be accountable to the citizens he represents — not to a wealthy doctor who lavished him luxury trips and jaw-dropping campaign checks.”
The heart of the Justice Department’s case surrounds allegations that Menendez encouraged officials to help Melgen resolve a $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare, pressured State Department officials to help Melgen settle a contractual dispute with the Dominican Republic, and contacted an ambassador to secure travel visas for Melgen’s foreign girlfriends — “official acts” prosecutors claim put Menendez on the hook under federal bribery law.
“Who pulls out their checkbook and writes a $300,000 check?” Cooney added, referring to one of the political contributors Melgen made to a Democratic super PAC earmarked for New Jersey in May 2012. “How about someone trying to send a message — someone with $8.9 million hanging in the balance. . . . This looks like bribery because it’s bribery.”
Cooney told jurors that Menendez only paid Melgen back $58,500 for trips on private jet rides in 2013 after a Washington Post reporter began investigating their relationship and “he got caught,” then playing a 2013 interview Menendez gave to CNN where he told Dana Bash the trips “fell through the cracks.”
“Sen. Menendez wanted the public to believe then and the defense wants you to believe now that $58,500 fell through the cracks — $58,500 does not fall through the cracks,” Cooney said.
The courtroom was packed with a gaggle of clergy in support of Menendez, family members, spectators, and some top brass from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section as Cooney gave his closing argument.
Heading into federal court Thursday morning, Menendez told reporters, “I believe that verdict will be of innocence. The government has not proven its case because there is no case to prove and that was their version all along.”
Throughout the trial Menendez and Melgen have maintained their innocence, as defense lawyers have tried to show Menendez was genuinely motivated to act out of broader policy concerns, not because he was being paid off by his friend.
Melgen and Menendez’s defense attorneys will do their closing arguments next.
The case is expected to go to the jury for deliberations early next week.