Menendez Hit With New Criminal Charges, Feds Say He Accepted Luxury Watches in Exchange for Promoting Qatari Interests
AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
Sen. Bob Menendez (R-NJ) faces new criminal charges that he used his influence on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit a second foreign government, this time the Middle Eastern country of Qatar.
The Southern District of New York filed a superseding indictment Tuesday charging Menendez with accepting high-end items like race car tickets and luxury wristwatches valued at up to $24,000 in exchange for promoting the Qatari government.
WABC in New York reported some of the details of the indictment:
“How about one of these,” the indictment quoted co-defendant Fred Daibes as saying in a message he sent to Menendez along with photos of the watches.
Menendez and Daibes had attended an event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government, prosecutors said.
Two days later, September 29, 2021, Daibes sent Menendez a message about a Senate resolution supportive of Qatar as the Qatari Investment Company considered a real estate investment with Daibes.
By March of 2022 the Qataris were offering Nadine Menendez tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix in Florida, prosecutors said, and by 2023 the Qatari Investment Company completed a joint venture with Daibes worth tens of millions of dollars.
The New Jersey senator, his wife Nadine, and three associates had already pleaded not guilty in September to allegedly taking bribes related to the government of Egypt. Authorities said the Menendezes received more than $480,000 in cash, a convertible, and gold bars valued at $100,000.
Menendez has been charged with bribery before. In 2015, he stood trial for allegedly accepting gifts from a friend in exchange for influencing “the outcome of ongoing contractual and Medicare billing disputes worth tens of millions of dollars.” The jury could not come to a unanimous verdict and the judge declared a mistrial. Menendez was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee at the time.
Menendez has said he will not resign over the allegations.
