In opening statements, Melgen and Menendez lawyers have detailed their friendship as they try to undercut the prosecution’s case that Menendez did favors for Melgen in exchange for luxury vacations and donations. | AP Photo Menendez trial an attack on Hispanic Americans, says co-defendant's lawyer

NEWARK — The second day of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez’s federal corruption trial concluded Thursday after an attorney for Menendez’s co-defendant accused prosecutors of attacking Hispanic-Americans, and the judge warned attorneys on both sides not to turn the proceeding into a “tabloid trial.”

Kirk Ogrosky, the lead attorney for Dominican-born Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, described a deep, 25-year friendship between Melgen and Menendez in which the two men often sought to help young Hispanic Americans advance the way they had.


“Sal and Bob were part of a fellowship of Hispanic Americans. entrepreneurs, businessmen, doctors, politicians. You’ll hear this at trial: their idea was to pay it forward, help young Hispanic Americans improve their lives, lift up their community, play a larger role in their community,” Ogrosky said. “This case isn’t only an attack on those two men. It’s an attack on that whole group.”

Ogrosky’s comments were the highlight of a day that later delved into the minutiae of a $1,500 per night Paris hotel room in which Menendez stayed in 2010.

Ogrosky, in his opening statement that was carried over from Wednesday, said Menendez — New Jersey’s first Hispanic senator and one of only two in the U.S. Senate — singled out Melgen as a Hispanic-American success story in a book he wrote in 2009.

Ogrosky read aloud the inscription Menendez had written to Melgen in the book, a photo of which he displayed for jurors: “For my brother Sal, affection for our brotherhood and respect for what you have accomplished. Yes, it’s possible. Yes, we can. Does that sound familiar? Yes, we can?”

In opening statements, lawyers for both Melgen and Menendez detailed the men's friendship to undercut the prosecution’s case that Menendez did favors for Melgen in exchange for stays at his luxury Domincan Republic condo, flights on his private jet, hotel stays and hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations.

Orgrosky said doing favors for a friend — one whom Menendez respected and believed raised legitimate policy issues — is not bribery.

“(Prosecutor Peter Koski) said friendship is not a defense to bribery. I’m here to tell you today that friendship is an absolute defense for bribery,” Ogrosky said. “Because they’re friends, there is no intent to bribe. When you do things for friends because you love them like a brother, there’s no bribe.”

Ogrosky also showed pictures of Melgen’s condominium in the Dominican Republic where he frequently hosted Menendez, in the luxury estate Casa de Campo.

Ogrosky’s pictures portrayed the condo as a nice but not extravagant home — a contrast to the brochures the prosecution was expected to show jurors detailing the luxury activities available at the resort, and the celebrities who had stayed there. The photos showed family meals and a kitchen, in which he singled out the microwave and toaster.

“Don’t get me wrong. It is a very nice house. But it is not what the government portrays,” Ogrosky said.

Ogrosky also showed jurors a list of dozens of flights Menendez had taken to see Melgen, many commercial — the vast majority of which were paid for by Menendez, not Melgen. And he showed a picture of Menendez as Melgen’s daughter walked down the aisle at her wedding that took place long before the two men’s relationship drew controversy.

“Look at that smile. That smile is not some concocted smile because he thinks he’s going to be caught on camera sitting in some courtroom in 2017. That’s real," he said. "He’s happy for them."

After Ogrosky concluded his statement, prosecutors called their first witness: FBI intelligence analyst Jane Ruch.

Ruch described emails exchanged between Menendez and staffers in which the senator asked them to book a hotel room for him in Paris that was suggested by his friend, who according to the emails had arranged a meeting with the senator, the U.S. ambassador to France and a company interested in investing in the U.S.

The friend, Kiera Konis, was staying at the hotel. Menendez was offered rooms with two slightly different rates, but both well over $500.

About two weeks after the exchange with staffers, Menendez sent an email to Melgen asking him to pay with points and saying he would reimburse him when he accumulated enough points. Prosecutors pointed out that in his email to Melgen, Menendez listed two room options, but put the more expensive room first. Eventually, Melgen paid with points for an even more expensive room.

At that point, Judge William Walls paused the testimony and excused the jury.

“I said to counsel at sidebar that I was not within my discretion going to let this be a tabloid trial,” the judge told the attorneys. “I also suspect that we are now playing games with regards to asking questions that are frankly irrelevant … Who cares whether the cheaper room was placed behind the more expensive, and frankly who cares whether the senator opted for a more expensive room? What is the point to be made?"

Prosecutor J.P. Cooney told Walls that he was trying to establish that Menendez wanted to stay at the same hotel as Konis but couldn’t afford it, so he turned to Melgen to pay for the room with points Menendez knew he could not afford. Melgen wound up booking a more luxurious room for Menendez than either of the options Menendez had presented, with a price tag of $1,500 per night. Melgen paid with more than 650,000 American Express points.

“When he realized it was a luxury hotel in Paris that he could not afford, the way he could afford it was by soliciting from Doctor Melgen and trading the valuable thing he did have,” Cooney said.

Walls then questioned how Cooney knew that Menendez — who earns $174,000 a year as a senator — could not afford it.

“Where are you making that assumption?” Walls asked. “You know what you’re doing? You’re trying to jump over your shadow … because you don’t have any factual predicates. “

In his cross-examination of Ruch, Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell tried to cast doubt on the prosecution’s claim that the hotel room counted as a bribe by noting that Menendez appeared to look for several ways to book it before reaching out to Melgen.

“So the first thing that Senator Menendez did was not to contact Dr. Melgen, was it?” Lowell said. “And the second thing he did was not to contact Dr. Melgen, was it?” Lowell said. “And it was some 16 days later that he was first to reach out to Dr. Melgen.”

The trial resumes Monday morning.

Linh Tat contributed reporting