A luxury car to harass the Attorney General? Jurors in Menendez learn of a deal to ‘kill all investigations’ • New Jersey Monitor

Four weeks after the start of the corruption trial against Senator Bob Menendez in Manhattan, the jury has barely heard a word about the co-defendant, who pleaded guilty and he is expected to testify against him.

That changed Wednesday, when prosecutors spent the day explaining failed insurance broker Jose Uribe’s role in what they see as a multi-layered bribery scheme, laying the groundwork for testimony Thursday by former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

Prosecutors say Menendez, New Jersey’s senior senator, called and met with Grewal several times in 2019 to prevent a state investigation into insurance fraud and prosecution of Uribe’s friends.

In return, Uribe hosted a fundraiser for the senator at Cliffside Park in July 2018 and spent tens of thousands of dollars on a new Mercedes-Benz convertible for the senator’s wife, Nadine, who needed a new car to replace hers, which she wrecked in December 2018, according to testimony Wednesday.

“The deal is to abort and stop all investigations,” Uribe wrote in a text message to his friend Wael Hana, who, according to prosecutors, had connected him with the couple.

The senator’s alleged attempt to pressure Grewal was unsuccessful. The trucking company owner Elvis Parra, who was arrested in April 2019 for Fraud of almost $389,000 from an insurance carrier, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and was sentenced to probation.

But Uribe, who had made the $15,000 down payment on the $67,000-plus Mercedes, continued to pay the car’s monthly bills – totaling about $30,000 – until FBI agents raided the Menendezes’ home in June 2022 as part of their corruption investigation.

“The car is home,” Nadine texted the senator after signing the papers for it at the dealer on April 5, 2019.

“Woopy!!!” the senator wrote back.

She wrote to Uribe: “You are a miracle worker who makes dreams come true. I will always remember that.”

Prosecutor Paul Monteleoni, through questioning by FBI Special Agent Rachel Graves on Wednesday, systematically presented hundreds of text messages, emails, phone calls and other documents showing that Uribe began texting Nadine Menendez so frequently to gain access to the senator that within months she was referring to him as “family.”

“I will not disappoint you. You are family,” Nadine Menendez Uribe assured via text message as it appeared that the state investigation was continuing.

The senator called Grewal in early September 2019 and met with him and Andrew Bruck two days later in a meeting that was conspicuously missing from his official Senate calendar, according to testimony. Bruck was Grewal’s deputy attorney general and briefly succeeded him when Grewal left in July 2021 to become director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division.

After that meeting, the senator texted his wife, “Deal.” Uribe later texted a friend and told him that after the Grewal meeting, he met with Menendez – whom he called “the amigo” – at his apartment. The senator reported having “very positive” feelings about it, according to testimony.

On a day with a dizzying amount of evidence, prosecutors continued to try to refute defense attorneys’ claims that Menendez did not know much about his wife’s actions, showing both mundane and suggestive text messages that suggested he was well aware of her actions. They also repeatedly pointed out that he frequently used the “Find My Friends” tracking app to check Nadine’s whereabouts.

Wednesday’s testimony revealed more tantalizing details that should make Nadine Menendez’s trial interesting. Her trial is not scheduled to begin until July at the earliest after Judge Sidney H. Stein granted her request for a delay so she could receive necessary medical treatment.

Text messages revealed that Nadine had a flip phone for confidential messages, which she called her “007 cell phone number.” On her loan application for the Mercedes, she said she was “self-employed,” listed her occupation as “vice president,” and reported an income of $197,000.

On the night of December 12, 2018, when her Mercedes was totaled, she was on her way to visit Rosemarie Sorce, the wife of a real estate developer and Menendez donor, according to testimony.

At 7:28 p.m., she texted Sorce that she had hit a detour and was only a few miles away – and six minutes later, she texted again: “Call me, 911.”

“I’m in the ambulance,” she wrote to Sorce 20 minutes later.

According to police, the collision occurred at 7:35 p.m.

Nadine had met and killed a pedestrian who crossed the traffic light when it was red in Bogota. Police did not ticket her, nor did they test her for alcohol, and she was not charged. The jury will not hear those details because Stein viewed them as biased.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. In addition to Grewal, they will also subpoena an FBI agent who analyzes fingerprints, prosecutors told Stein.