NEWARK, N.J. _ U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez used the power of his office to advance the "financial interests and personal whims" of a wealthy Florida eye doctor who bribed the senator with access to a lifestyle that read "like a travel brochure for the rich and famous," a prosecutor said Wednesday in federal court.
"This case is about a corrupt politician who sold his Senate office for a life of luxury he couldn't afford, and a greedy doctor who put that politician on his payroll for whenever he needed the services of a United States senator," Peter Koski, deputy chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, said in his opening statement of Menendez's corruption trial.
Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, faces a dozen charges related to the bribery scheme. Prosecutors accuse him of soliciting and accepting free trips on Salomon Melgen's private jet to luxurious resorts in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to help his 2012 re-election campaign, and other gifts to sustain a lavish lifestyle.
In exchange for Melgen's largesse, prosecutors say, Menendez did him favors: helping obtain visas for the doctor's foreign girlfriends, pressuring an assistant secretary of state to protect Melgen's port security contract in the Dominican Republic, and lobbying fellow senators and the highest-ranking health policy officials in the Obama administration to try to sway a Medicare billing dispute in the doctor's favor.
"I have committed my entire adult life, since I was 19, to fighting for the people of New Jersey," Menendez, 63, said in emotional remarks before entering the courthouse. "Never _ not once, not once _ have I dishonored my public office." The senator's voice broke at one point. "I appreciate all my supporters standing with me as I have tried to clear my name." When all the facts are known, Menendez said, he will be "vindicated."
Prosecutors say Menendez tried to cover up the crimes by purposefully omitting the gifts on his annual financial disclosure forms. Melgen is also charged in the case. He and the senator were indicted in 2015.
Menendez was supported by his fellow U.S. senator from New Jersey, Cory A. Booker, who sat behind the defense table during opening arguments.
Abbe Lowell, Menendez's attorney, told jurors that friendship was the "true nature" of the senator's relationship with Melgen _ not corruption.
"Sen. Menendez believed that every action he took ... was proper on the facts he heard, on the law and policy that was involved," Lowell said, adding that these actions "were recommended to him by experienced staff, including lawyers."
Defense attorneys said the two met in 1992 _ 14 years before prosecutors say the bribery scheme began.
Before the alleged conspiracy began, Lowell said, Melgen contributed to the senator's election efforts, Menendez took trips on the doctor's jet, and the two exchanged gifts. None of those actions or gifts are alleged to be bribes, Lowell noted.
They celebrated birthdays and holidays together and referred to each other as brothers. Their children referred to Menendez and Melgen as uncles, Lowell said.
Menendez paid for himself and his family to fly to the Dominican Republic more than a dozen times during the period in which prosecutors say the senator was taking bribes, Lowell said, suggesting the government's corruption theory didn't add up.
And attorneys for both Menendez and Melgen said neither profited from the gifts or from Menendez's actions in the Senate.
"No cash, no jewels, no cars, no loans, nothing more," Lowell said.
"Nothing the senator ever did for my client resulted in him getting money," Kirk Ogrosky, Melgen's attorney, told jurors.
"Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Not one dime," he said.
Menendez didn't report the flights and stays at Melgen's Dominican villa, Lowell suggested, because the law wasn't clear and reporting requirements were even changed.
In fact, Lowell said, the Senate Ethics Committee provides for a "friendship exception" that allows senators to receive unlimited gifts from friends.
