New images admitted as proof within the U.S. v. Menendez trial make clear discoveries made by federal brokers throughout their raid of the New Jersey senator’s residence.
Almost $500,000 in money and $150,000 in gold bars have been strategically hid all through his cluttered New Jersey residence, together with a hefty stack of payments crammed inside a Timberland boot.
This week, jurors have been offered with quite a few images capturing scenes contained in the Englewood Cliffs residence the place the Democratic senator and his spouse, Nadine, reside. Nadine’s trial was delayed till July whereas she undergoes remedy for breast most cancers.
Pictures confirmed money stuffed inside designer baggage and sneakers, gold bars, a number of cell telephones, jewellery, a cluttered closet crammed with clothes and different objects and a Mercedes-Benz that was allegedly one of many bribes given to the couple.
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The “sheer quantity of payments” discovered posed a problem for brokers, prompting Particular Agent Aristotelis Kougemitros to request help, he stated throughout Thursday’s testimony. The duty of manually tallying the $486,461 in payments proved daunting, necessitating the dispatch of two cash-counting machines from the FBI’s Manhattan workplace.
“I used to be directed that if I seized the money, that I wanted to depend it in place,” Kougemitros stated. “So, I known as in reinforcements.”
Kougemitros stated the town introduced within the cash-counting machines and “with all of the money that we began discovering, we counted all of it.”
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In alternate for the money, gold bars and different luxurious presents, Menendez allegedly used his energy as senator to learn the governments of Qatar and Egypt and provides enterprise favors to 3 New Jersey businessmen — Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe, co-defendants within the trial.
All have pleaded not responsible besides Uribe, who agreed to cooperate with authorities and testify on the trial.
That is the second time in a decade Menendez has been accused in a federal corruption case.