Following an FBI criminal probe, Sen. Robert Menendez was indicted in April 2015. | Julio Cortez/AP Photo Menendez corruption trial goes to jury The defense rested with a closing argument that friendship, not bribery, explains the senator’s actions.

NEWARK, N.J. — The fate of Sen. Robert Menendez is now in the jury’s hands.

With the New Jersey Democrat’s career and freedom hanging in the balance, his defense lawyer said Monday that Menendez’s relationship with Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, was a longstanding friendship — not a corrupt connection, as claimed by the Justice Department.


“This case is not about what was done, it’s about why it was done,” Abbe Lowell said in his closing argument of the bribery trial, the first in a generation involving a sitting senator. “Friendship explains that.”

A federal prosecutor countered that Menendez did Melgen’s bidding in return for bribes, saying Melgen “paid Bob Menendez to be his personal U.S. senator.”

“Your common sense tells you this is corruption,” Peter Koski, a top Justice Department prosecutor, told jurors. “Their strategy comes down to strategy and misdirection. Spend enough time talking about friendship, maybe the jury will forget about bribery. … Do not let the defense get away with this.”

The dueling views of Menendez played out during the final arguments of Menendez’s bribery trial, which has lasted nine weeks in a federal courthouse in Newark. The jury began deliberating Menendez’s fate Monday afternoon, almost five years after Menendez’s relationship with Melgen first attracted media attention.

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For Menendez, the stakes couldn’t be higher. A bribery conviction could result in years in prison for the 63-year-old lawmaker. And while Menendez might not face immediate expulsion from the Senate if found guilty, it would be the end of a prominent political career that saw him rise from the education board in Union City, New Jersey, to the U.S. Senate.

Following a lengthy FBI criminal probe, Menendez was indicted in April 2015 for allegedly taking official acts on Melgen’s behalf in exchange for private jet flights, hotel rooms and nearly $750,000 in campaign contributions directly to the New Jersey Democrat or political organizations that supported him.

In turn, Menendez intervened in a multimillion-dollar Medicare billing dispute on Melgen’s behalf, helped obtained visas for several Melgen girlfriends, and lobbied State Department officials regarding a $500 million port security contract that a Melgen company had with the Dominican Republic.

Melgen, 63, has been convicted in the Medicare billing dispute and is awaiting sentencing. Prosecutors have recommended a 30-year sentence in that case.

Lowell repeatedly asserted that none of the official acts taken by Menendez on Melgen’s behalf were illegal or out of the ordinary. According to the well-known defense attorney, the Justice Department failed to prove Melgen bribed Menendez because it could never show any agreement between the two men to engage in criminal acts, a key element of bribery cases.

“There was no corrupt agreement,” Lowell declared, calling it “the fatal flaw” in the government’s case. It was a point he hit over and over again during his nearly three-hour presentation. “There was no real evidence of a corrupt bribery agreement, because one never happened.”

“There was no documents, no emails, no phone calls, no nothing,” Lowell added. “And [federal prosecutors] did something I didn’t expect — they even invented witnesses.”

As Lowell displayed pictures of the two men relaxing at social events — and a Menendez campaign video — he attacked the Justice Department’s case in detail, trying to point out inconsistencies and contradictions in the prosecutors’ arguments. Menendez sat quietly at the defense table as Lowell made his presentation. Melgen sat nearby, showing no emotion.

Calling them “Bob and Sal,” Lowell said Menendez took official acts that aided Melgen because of their friendship, not because he was bribed.

Lowell portrayed Menendez and Melgen as “two self-made men” of Hispanic heritage — Menendez was born in Cuba, Melgen comes from the Dominican Republic — who found it easier to be together than with others. Menendez and Melgen first met at a fundraiser in Florida in 1993. Lowell said the two men’s families were very close, and noted that Menendez and Melgen even stayed in the same hotel room once during a trip.

Lowell claimed that Menendez’s failure to report hotel rooms and private jet flights paid for by Melgen was due to oversight, not an attempt to conceal criminal acts or their relationship.

“Bob Menendez and Sal Melgen did not have any reason to hide their friendship and interactions, and they didn’t,” said Lowell, who noted that Menendez mentioned Melgen in a book and attended the wedding of Melgen’s daughter. “Where is there proof these two men were trying to conceal their relationship?”

Lowell tried to explain away the most controversial part of the Menendez-Melgen relationship: Menendez’s attempts to pressure the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Health and Human Services Department in Melgen’s billing dispute. Menendez lobbied former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2012 to set up a meeting with then-HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to discuss the issue. Sebelius testified she “was asked to discuss a practice involving a billing issue before Medicare and Medicaid services.”

According to Lowell, the meeting took place because Obama administration officials wanted Menendez’s help with a nomination, in addition to questions over how a certain drug was billed by Medicare. Melgen used that drug extensively at his eye clinics in Miami.

In his rebuttal, Koski pounded Menendez and Melgen, mocking defense claims that Menendez wasn’t enriched by Melgen’s gifts and that their friendship doesn’t mean they didn’t commit criminal acts.

“[Melgen] needed power, needed action, needed results on his issues,” Koski said. “The issue in this case isn’t about friendship. It’s about bribery. … Friendship and bribery can coexist.”

Koski said Melgen had millions of dollars at stake in his disputes with the U.S. and Dominican governments and that he received help from Menendez on all of them.

Koski also noted that Melgen wrote a $300,000 check to a Democratic super PAC just days before a meeting with Tavenner, linking Menendez’s efforts to Melgen’s Medicare billing problems.

“Sen. Menendez’s meetings with top HHS and CMS officials were directly linked to Dr. Melgen,” Koski said as he outlined why top Obama administration health officials got involved in a relatively minor billing fight.

“This is not how United States senators behave,” Koski concluded. “This is corruption. Do not let them get away with this.”

Menendez later expressed optimism to reporters as he left the courthouse.

“I think my defense attorney did an amazing, extraordinary job. I was watching the jury’s faces, and they were very receptive,” Menendez said. “I think the government floundered in their closing statement. I’m looking forward to the jury’s decision.”

