Deliberations to resume Monday at bribery trial of Nadine Menendez, wife of ex-US Sen. Bob Menendez

NEW YORK (AP) — A jury will resume deliberations Monday in the bribery case brought against Nadine Menendez after a prosecutor told a jury that she was a “critical participant” in a five-year fraud with her husband, former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez.

The jury began considering the charges against the 58-year-old Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, resident in mid-afternoon on Friday in Manhattan federal court. Jurors went home nearly two hours later without reaching a verdict.

Bob Menendez, 71, a New Jersey Democrat, is to report to prison in June to begin an 11-year sentence. He stepped down from his Senate post after his conviction last year.

During a closing argument Thursday, Nadine Menendez’s lawyer, Barry Coburn, argued that the evidence was insufficient to result in a conviction.

In a rebuttal argument on Friday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Richenthal urged the jury to convict Nadine Menendez, saying they would have to believe that over $450,000 in cash and gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more that were found by the FBI in their home were gifts rather than bribes.

“They weren’t gifts,” he said. “They were bribes.”

He called the evidence against her “consistent and overwhelming” and described her as an “active participant, a critical participant” in the bribery scheme.

Born in Lebanon of Armenian descent, Nadine Menendez began dating the senator in early 2018 when she was known as Nadine Arslanian. Prosecutors said she soon joined a bribery scheme involving three New Jersey businessmen. The couple was married in the fall of 2020.

Bob Menendez, whose Senate career began in 2006, carried out the bribery scheme while he held powerful positions on the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He was forced from the committee after he was charged in the case.

The trial for Nadine Menendez was postponed last year after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and required surgery.