Federal prosecutors on Tuesday asked a Manhattan judge to reject Sen. Bob Menendez’s move to shelve his trial on corruption charges until after New Jersey’s June 4 primary.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams argued in a filing before U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein that the current schedule, which sets the trial to begin on May 6, 2024, was “expedited, but reasonable.”
“Nothing in the defendant’s request for a continuance, filed more than two months after the schedule was set, justifies a material deviation from this considered schedule,” Williams continued.
Lawyers for Menendez and his co-defendants implored Stein last week to postpone the trial until early July, citing the complexity of the case as well as the “volume and timing of the government’s disclosures.”
“Contrary to the government’s heated statements to the press, this is far from an open and shut case,” the Democrat’s lawyers said in the document.
Bob Menendez’s legal team is trying to delay the start date of the trial. AP
Williams scoffed at the defense claim, writing Tuesday: “If there were a right to have several months to digest discovery before filing motions, as defendants seem to suggest, the practice in this district would be quite different.”
Menendez, 69, is accused along with his wife Nadine of accepting bribes, including more than $150,000 in gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible, to help businessmen Wael Hana, José Uribe and Fred Daibes, who are also accused in the case. case.
Menendez, former chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is also accused of acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.
Two of the gold bars found during a search by federal agents at the home of Senator Bob Menendez appear in the senator’s indictment. AP investigators also found wads of cash in envelopes hidden inside a jacket with the senator’s name on it, according to the indictment. AP
If convicted, the New Jersey Democrat could face up to 45 years behind bars. He pleaded not guilty and insisted that he will be vindicated.
While Menendez has not said whether he will run for another term next year, he has refused to resign in the face of a chorus of Senate Democrats and New Jersey politicians imploring him to do just that.
Despite his stubbornness, polls show Menendez badly lost a hypothetical Democratic primary to progressive Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy also announced that she will challenge Menendez for the Senate.
The senator has so far rejected calls for his resignation. AP U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ office is prosecuting the case against Bob Menendez. AP
“Those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first-generation Latin American from humble origins could become a United States senator,” Menéndez said in response to the initial accusation in September.
“Worse still, they see me as an obstacle in the way of their broader political goals.”
Menendez, who was first appointed to the Senate in 2006 and has been elected four times since, previously survived bribery charges in an unrelated matter in 2017 due to a hung jury.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn