ADDS DETAILS ON PLEA DEAL
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - US Sen. Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty to corruption charges Wednesday, maintaining his innocence amid growing calls for him to step down from office while the legal process plays out.
Menendez was released on a $100,000 bond by US Magistrate Judge Ona Wang, who ordered him to surrender his personal passport and generally barred him from traveling abroad.
Wang made a carve-out for official business, allowing him to keep his official government passport, but said Menendez must first notify authorities before departing the US.
The senator is further prohibited from contacting any of his co-defendants with the exception of his wife, any witnesses already identified by prosecutors, and all individuals named in the indictment without lawyers being present.
Menendez was indicted last week alongside his wife, Nadine Arslanian, and three New Jersey businessmen. The charges were brought after a long-running federal investigation into the senior senator from New Jersey.
He is accused of accepting bribes to use the power of his office to benefit the businessmen and the Egyptian government, including attempts to influence the outcomes of state and federal investigations and passing on restricted government information to Cairo.
Arslanian and the three businessmen -- Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe -- have also pleaded not guilty. Hana did so Tuesday while all others entered their pleas Wednesday, according to reports.
Nearly half of all of Menendez's fellow Democratic senators have urged him to resign, including junior New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and the state’s Democratic governor. He is up for re-election in 2024 and has vowed to seek another term amid the charges.
"I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey's senior senator," he said. "We cannot set aside the presumption of innocence for political expediency when the harm is irrevocable. For those who have rushed to judgment, you have done so based on a limited set of facts framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible.”
A previous trial on corruption charges ended with a hung jury in 2017, and prosecutors chose not to relitigate that case against the senator.
Investigators found more than $486,000 in cash when they searched Menendez's home in June 2022, "much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets and a safe," according to the indictment that was unsealed Friday.
Menendez defended his decision to store the high volume of cash at his residence. He said he kept it "for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba." He did not explain the alleged presence of gold bars.
The senator was born to a Cuban immigrant family in New York in 1954, but his family left the island nation well before the revolution that saw Fidel Castro assume power in 1959.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who has come out as a vocal critic against Menendez in the wake of the current indictment, mocked Menendez's claim, writing on X: "We have an extra flashlight for our home emergencies."