A federal judge on Monday warned attorneys on both sides of Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) bribery trial to keep the theatrics at bay and to “operate in good faith.”
“There’s been too much gamesmanship here,” Judge Sidney Stein said ahead of jury selection in the high-profile trial. “Everybody has to operate in good faith here. I’m not sure I’ve seen that.”
Menendez, once one of the most powerful Democratic senators in Congress, sat silently in a Manhattan federal courtroom while Stein spoke.
Menendez is accused of receiving bribes from 2018 to 2022. He’s also accused of extortion, fraud, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.
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Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York told Stein that they expected to take up to 6 1/2 weeks to present their case. The trial itself could last around six to seven weeks, Stein told prospective jurors before outlining the 18-count indictment against Menendez and his co-defendants.
Opening arguments could come as early as Tuesday.
This is the second criminal trial Menendez, 70, has faced.
In 2017, he dodged conviction on a laundry list of other corruption charges, but legal experts claim this case, which was brought by the Justice Department, presents a bigger threat to Menendez and the country.
“Any time an individual is indicted two times in a row for, let’s call it, public corruption, the odds are not in his favor,” Chris Adams, a defense attorney at the New Jersey law firm Greenbaum Rowe, which was part of Menendez’s 2017 legal team, told the Washington Post. “My view as a defense attorney is that this is a much stronger case for the government.”
Menendez has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
He is expected to pin much of the blame on his wife, Nadine Menendez, according to court filings. Nadine Menendez has also been charged and was supposed to go on trial with her husband. However, she had surgery and needed time to recover. Her trial is now slated to start in July.
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The senator’s federal trial is taking place just a few blocks away from where former President Donald Trump is on trial linked to a $130,000 hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The New Jersey Democrat has pleaded not guilty.
