Menendez attorney casts doubt on prosecution’s case in closing arguments
Attorney Adam Fee said “his actions were lawful, normal and good for his constituents and country.”
NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez’s defense team argued Tuesday that a jury is all that stands between the New Jersey Democrat and a “lifetime of shame.”
In the defense’s closing arguments, Menendez attorney Adam Fee said federal prosecutors had used every manner of “lawyer stuff” to fill in gaps in their case. Prosecutors, who wrapped up their first set of closing arguments earlier on Tuesday, allege the senator is part of numerous schemes to disrupt criminal cases against New Jersey business people and aid the government of Egypt in exchange for bribes.
Fee said prosecutors had used “every version of misdirection” and told a “one-sided story” by “riffing,” “fudging,” “misleading” and using “shifty” inferences.” Throughout his two-hour argument, Fee tried to cast doubt on prosecutors’ case with descriptions of it being filled with “half-truths,” “fantasy,” “conjecture,” “speculation” and “games.”
“You’re being asked to imagine, in the gaps of evidence, the criminal stuff,” Fee told jurors, who are expected to begin deliberations in coming days.
While there are reams of text messages, phone records and other documents that prosecutors hope give jurors a timeline and evidence of bribes and illegal acts — along with a cooperating witness — Fee poked at what he called gaps in the government’s theory about where cash and gold found in Menendez’s home came from.
When the FBI agents searched Menendez’s home, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and 13 gold bars.
Fee was candid that he could not explain every piece of evidence, including some of the Google searches Menendez made for the price of gold at times prosecutors say he and his wife and co-defendant Nadine were being bribed with gold. (Nadine Menendez is standing trial separately).
But Fee suggested the government could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the gold was a bribe to Menendez, which is one of the prosecutors’ theories in the case. He also continued to hammer Menendez’s argument that at least a portion of the cash found there was money the senator hoarded because of his family’s experience fleeing Cuba.
Several of the gold bars were traced by prosecutors back to New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes, one of the senator’s two co-defendants on trial. Daibes’ attorney has said that Daibes provided Menendez and his wife with cash and gold as gifts, but not as bribes.
The senator is alleged to have helped Daibes cement a real estate deal with Qatar and tried to help pick a federal prosecutor in New Jersey who would deal favorably with Daibes, who is facing bank fraud charges there.
Fee also said — in an argument he is expected to continue on Wednesday morning — that acts the senator is accused of taking in exchange for bribes were proper.
“His actions were lawful, normal and good for his constituents and country,” Fee said.
Fee highlighted two items he said undercut the prosecution’s goal to prove blame beyond a reasonable doubt: The placement of a blazer in Menendez’s home and how many American embassy officials were in Egypt.
At the start of a trial, an FBI agent called by the prosecution said a blazer owned by the senator was found inside a locked closet in his bedroom, where gold bars and envelopes of cash were also found. However, the agent later said that the blazer was found outside of the closet.
The discrepancy is key to an argument put forth by Menendez’s attorneys: that the senator was unaware of everything Nadine Menendez was doing.
Fee also questioned another central allegation in the prosecution’s case: that Bob Menendez passed along sensitive information that ended up with Egyptian officials and acted as an unofficial agent of the country. Prosecutors said in their indictment that Menendez passed along “highly sensitive” information on how many staffers were at the American embassy in Cairo which was sent to Nadine and eventually to Egyptian officials.
But while prosecutors described the staff details as “sensitive, non-public embassy information” in the indictment, Fee pointed to online government reports that mentioned similar numbers, saying it was “100 percent public information.”
The discrepancy on whether the staffing information was public, Fee said, showed the prosecution was shifting their story and could not be trusted.
“They are fudging,” Fee said. “They are misleading you.”