Senator Menendez indicted for corruption, asserts his innocence

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez and Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist, were indicted on Wednesday by the District of New Jersey for one count of conspiracy, one count of violating the travel act, eight counts of bribery and three counts of honest services fraud.

Menendez was also charged with one count of making false statements.

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Newark, New Jersey Division Richard Frankel.

According to CNN, Menendez has asserted his innocence, pledging to fight the federal corruption charges brought against him. Menendez said the charges were politically motivated and "intended to silence me."

Menendez and Melgen did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

"I have always conducted myself in accordance with the law,” Menendez said. "I'm angry and ready to fight because today contradicts my public service career and my entire life."

In a press releaseWednesday, The Department of Justice allegedthat Menendez accepted close to $1 million worth of lavish gifts and campaign contributions from Melgen between January 2006 and January 2013. Melgen’s contributions were allegedly in exchange for Menendez using the power of his Senate office to influence the outcome of ongoing contractual and Medicare billing disputes worth tens of millions of dollars to Melgen and to support the visa applications of several of Melgen’s girlfriends.

The indictment alleges that, among other gifts, Menendez accepted flights on Melgen’s private jet, a first-class commercial flight and a flight on a chartered jet; numerous vacations at Melgen’s Caribbean villa in the Dominican Republic and at a hotel room in Paris; and $40,000 in contributions to his legal defense fund and over $750,000 in campaign contributions.

Menendez never disclosed any of the reportable gifts that he received from Melgen on his financial disclosure forms.

"[Prosecutors] don't know the difference between friendship and corruption and have chosen to twist my duties as a senator and my friendship into something that is improper,"Menendez said.

The Department of Justice has been preparing to bring criminal corruption charges against Menendez since early March.

The case is now being investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Deputy Chiefs Peter Koski and J.P. Cooney, and Trial Attorney Monique Abrishami of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section.

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“It’ll be very interesting to see how this plays out legally,” said Stanley Katz, senior lecturer in the Wilson School.

Katz noted a few standout points in the trial, namely the indictment of Melgen as well as Menendez and the jury’s decision to indict both men before the statute of limitation was reached.

“They are playing hardball,” Katz said in reference to the prosecution about the fact that Menendez found out about his indictment from the press release.

Katz said that it’s extremely difficult to delineate acts of friendship from outright bribery, meaning that this case will be a hard one to prove.

Law professor at Northwestern University and a member of the American Bar Association’s Global Anti-Corruption Task ForceJuliet Sorensen ’95 said that it is too soon to say whether the case will be dismissed.

"The indictment of Robert Menendez references a number of documents," Sorensen said. "I am sure that in the course of pre-trial discovery and pre-trial motion practice, Senator Menendez’s lawyers will certainly try to assess how the government came to acquire those documents. If they were obtained either directly, that is to say in physical form, or perhaps indirectly, electronically, from the Senator's office in congress, I would expect that that would be litigated and brought before the judge probably in the form of a motion to dismiss the indictment."

She noted that there have been recent rulings about Speech and Debate clause in the pre-trial motion practice concerning former Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana, now in jail for corruption. In that case, the FBI had actually executed a search warrant on his congressional house office.

If documents are expressly linked to a crime, they are not protected by the Speech and Debate clause, according to Sorensen.

"Obviously Dr. Melgen and Senator Menendez are close personal friends, and I would expect that their attorneys are, even now, preparing the series of dissents that these two had a very personal relationship and friends rely on each other," she said. "That's what friends do. However, things are a little different when one of those friends is a powerful U.S. state senator and the other friend is seeking special acts from him clearly in exchange for certain monetary favors."

Sorensen cited Menendez working hard to obtain visas for the doctor's girlfriends as such an act.

Justice Department spokesperson Peter Carr deferred comment to the indictment.