Corruption trial for Nadine Menendez, convicted senator’s wife, delayed indefinitely as she battles breast cancer
The fate of Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife Nadine was left in limbo Tuesday after a judge indefinitely delayed her federal corruption trial — hours before a jury convicted her embattled husband of a sprawling plot to pocket gold bars and other bribes.
In a brief ruling Tuesday morning, Judge Sidney Stein ruled that “the ends of justice” were best served by adjourning the trial of Nadine Menendez, 57, which had been set to unfold later this year.
The judge did not cite a reason for his decision, but issued the ruling after Nadine’s lawyer wrote in a June court filing that she is “in intense, chronic pain” after having had surgery in which “medical equipment [was] implanted in her body” as part of her breast cancer treatment.
The New Jersey senator, 70, said in May that his wife was suffering from “Grade 3 breast cancer” and would require a mastectomy.
Nadine Menendez served as a key cog in the scheme to scoop up gold, cash and a new luxury car in exchange for catering to crooked Garden State businessmen and Egyptian and Qatari officials, Manhattan federal prosecutors said.
The senator’s lawyers, Avi Weitzman and Adam Fee, wrote in a joint statement Tuesday that Menendez’s “highest priority is his wife’s health, and we are pleased that she is being given the time she needs to focus on treatment and recovery.”
During the trial, the attorneys used an eyebrow-raising “blame my wife” defense, suggesting to jurors that Nadine had kept her powerful husband in the dark about asking his co-defendants for the alleged bribes.
The jury’s conviction of Menendez on all 16 felony counts that he’d faced suggests that they did not buy those lawyers’ explanation for the gold bars and other goodies FBI agents recovered from the bedroom Nadine and Bob shared.
Nadine’s attorney, Barry Coburn, declined to comment Tuesday.
Nadine, who started dating the senator in 2018 and married him in 2020, did not attend her convicted husband’s trial.
She was at his side in earlier court appearances — including at one hearing where she toted a Chanel handbag to the defense table.
