On Monday, the primary witness in federal prosecutors’ case against Sen. Bob Menendez testified about a backyard encounter with him in September 2019. The senator was smoking a cigar, and there was Grand Marnier.
At one time, Jose Uribe, a witness who has pleaded guilty to bribing Menendez and his now-wife and is working with federal prosecutors, stated that the senator cried out “mon amour” and rang a small bell, summoning his then-girlfriend Nadine from her home to the backyard. She took out a piece of paper and returned inside the house.
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Uribe claimed he used the paper to jot down the names of companies and individuals under investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. Uribe claimed that he bribed Nadine with a new automobile in order for the senator to “kill” the probe.
Uribe testified that the New Jersey Democrat pocketed the piece of paper.
The next day, Menendez met in his Newark district office with then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and one of Grewal’s top advisers. According to federal prosecutors, Menendez used that encounter to try to undermine the investigations that Uribe wanted to stop.
Grewal testified last week that he cut off the senator when Menendez attempted to bring up pending cases. When he and his aide exited the meeting, the aide looked at Grewal and muttered, “Whoa, that was gross.”
Prosecutors said Menendez, who has denied the allegations, did not influence the conclusion of the probe, but informed Uribe that the meeting went well nonetheless. They charged the senator with corruption, and earlier last year, Uribe pleaded guilty to bribing the senator and his wife.
Months before the backyard confrontation, Uribe claimed he gave Nadine $15,000 cash at a parking lot to assist her in purchasing a new Mercedes-Benz.
According to Uribe, Menendez appeared to have solved his difficulties. His payments to Nadine contributed to this outcome.
Uribe claimed he never discussed the car with the senator but had “no doubt” he was aware of it. On the stand, Uribe asserted that there was no other way to explain his presence at the senator’s girlfriend’s house and his dinners and drinks with him.
At her house, with the senator, the brandy, and the cigar, he made sure the senator understood the other end of the deal: “peace” for Uribe, his business associates, and his family.
A federal prosecutor questioned Uribe on Friday and Monday, during which he testified about numerous meetings, one of which took place in Nadine’s backyard.
Prosecutors used photographs of the meetings to depict several interactions: the parking lot of Villa Amalfi in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, where Uribe claimed he handed Nadine the money; and the interior of Il Villaggio in Bergen County, where Uribe claimed he, Nadine, and the senator met on August 7, 2019 to confirm their understanding.
Uribe stated that at the dinner, the senator appeared to have “complete knowledge” of the prosecution, which he is accused of attempting to undermine. And, when Uribe urged him to find out about the probe into his own company, Menendez said, “He would look into it,” Uribe claimed.
Uribe added that a few weeks later, on September 5, 2019, they met in the backyard to discuss again. The next day, after prosecutors claimed Menendez met with Grewal, Uribe claimed Nadine directed him to Menendez’s residence.
Uribe claimed he discovered the senator in the lobby. They gathered at the window. “That thing you asked me about,” Uribe tells the senator, “doesn’t seem to be anything there.”
A few weeks later, on October 29, the senator called Uribe using a “202” number. According to Uribe, the senator had called from his Washington office. This time, according to Uribe, the senator was more clear.
“That thing you asked me about—there is nothing there,” Uribe remarked as the senator held him. “I give you your peace.”
Uribe interpreted this to suggest that the senator had helped to conclude the probe against his business associates, acquaintances, and family.
At this point in his testimony on Monday afternoon, Uribe started to cry, and a court official eventually gave him a tissue.
For more than a year, Uribe aimed to secure a fair settlement for a business associate facing insurance fraud charges in New Jersey, while simultaneously preventing a related state investigation that might implicate one of his own companies.
One of Uribe’s colleagues, Elvis Parra, struck a deal that spared him a prison sentence. Following the senator’s call in the fall of 2019, the inquiry into Uribe’s businesses appeared to come to an end.
Uribe also provided more information regarding the bribe he claimed he gave to Nadine, who will face trial separately due to a cancer diagnosis.
“If your problem is a car, my problem is saving my family,” Uribe claimed he told Nadine in March 2019, just days before handing her the cash for a downpayment on a new Mercedes convertible.
Uribe would eventually arrange or make dozens of monthly payments on her Mercedes.
By late July, Parra had reached an agreement that required no jail time. That was beneficial for Uribe. But a detective from the New Jersey attorney general’s office was still trying to question one of his subordinates, whom he considered a daughter. That was horrible.
Part of the problem appears to be that Uribe had been going through an intermediary for months: Wael “Will” Hana, who is now one of Menendez’s co-defendants in the corruption trial. And it’s unclear if the senator realized Uribe was looking for a two-part accord until months later, when Uribe believed he and Hana had reached an agreement.
For example, days before their meeting in August 2019, Nadine texted Uribe that she had spoken with the senator and “he said it would’ve been so easy if we had wrapped both together.”
Days after the senator contacted Uribe, the three of them and another buddy went out for champagne to celebrate.
The following summer, during the epidemic, Uribe claimed he saw the senator, Nadine, and her adult daughter at an outdoor café. When Nadine and her daughter stood up to go to the restroom, the senator turned to him and announced, in Spanish, that he had saved Uribe’s rear.
“He stated that I had saved your ass twice. “Not once, but twice,” Uribe stated.
Instead, two years later, in the summer of 2022, FBI investigators presented the senator, Nadine, and Uribe with search warrants, subpoenas, and a slew of questions.
At one point, Uribe stated that Nadine paid him a visit following the search and inquired as to what he intended to tell authorities about the car. Despite describing it as a loan, he maintained that it was never his intention. Uribe stated that just before Christmas 2022, Nadine would issue him a check for $21,000 labeled “personal loan” that did not cover what he had paid toward the car.
Uribe, who has pleaded guilty to seven different offenses, some unconnected to his dealings with the Menendezes, is now working with federal prosecutors in the hopes of receiving a reduced sentence. Otherwise, he may face up to 95 years in prison.
Late Monday, defense attorneys began cross-examining Uribe. Defense attorneys expect to probe numerous aspects of Uribe’s account and his own criminal history. For example, he remembered the substance but not always the exact words used during talks with Menendez, and it’s unclear whether he and Hana were on the same page or whether the senator was always aware of what Nadine was saying about his thoughts, words, and deeds.
The senator’s legal team stated that his contacts with Grewal were due to concerns about state authorities’ preferential persecution of Hispanics.
On the stand, Uribe revealed another example of the senator doing him a favor. Uribe stated that Menendez introduced him to the New Jersey insurance commissioner at a hospital ribbon cutting. Uribe, who had already lost his insurance license, was attempting to obtain it back. He said Menendez told the commissioner that he was a “good man.”
