NEWARK -- A hopelessly deadlocked jury brought an end to the corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on Thursday, prompting the declaration of a mistrial and concluding a contentious 11-week courtroom drama without a final act.

The government did not say whether it would retry the Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey and co-defendant Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, who were accused of swapping lavish gifts for government favors.

One juror told reporters afterward that most thought the government had no case.

Menendez was visibly emotional as he spoke to reporters following the conclusion of the trial. "The way this case started was wrong. The way it was investigated was wrong. The way it was prosecuted was wrong," proclaimed the senator, thanking 12 jurors "who saw through the government's false claims and used their Jersey common sense to reject it."

In a statement, the Justice Department also thanked the jury, and said only "the department will carefully consider next steps in this important matter and report to the court at the appropriate time."

The day's events played out beginning with a note sent out by jurors shortly before noon, telling U.S. District Judge William H. Walls, who is presiding over the case in federal court in Newark, that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

In the note, the jurors said they had "reviewed all the evidence slowly, thoroughly and in great detail," but concluded: "We cannot reach a unanimous decision on any of the charges, nor are we willing to move away from our strong convictions."

Prosecutors urged Walls to send the panel back to the jury room to see if they could reach at least a partial verdict. But the judge reluctantly declared a mistrial after questioning jurors privately with prosecutors and defense attorneys for nearly an hour.

After the jurors were dismissed, one told reporters that most were pushing for acquittal. Ed Norris, a 49-year-old juror from Roxbury Township, said ten of the 12 members of the jury believed the senator was not guilty--including himself. He said two others held out for a guilty verdict.

"When the prosecution rested ... in my gut I was like, that was it, that's all they had?" he remarked.

Another juror, Monique Green, said only, "It was just black and white. We couldn't come to a decision."

Menendez comes out with family to applause from friends and supporters #menendeztrial pic.twitter.com/z0RwX3S2aT — Karen Yi (@karen_yi) November 16, 2017

Even before the judge called a mistrial, there was a sense in the courtroom that it was over. Many supporters of Menendez and Melgen saw it as a victory. As attorneys waited for Walls to address the court, Kirk Ogrosky, Melgen's lead defense attorney, leaned down to his client and rubbed his shoulder. The children of Menendez hugged Melgen's wife and daughter, while federal prosecutor Amanda Vaughn looked glum.

With the mistrial, a wave of relief swept over the left side of the courtroom where Menendez's friends and family have been a steady presence over the last few weeks. They exited the courtroom after the jury was dismissed and immediately began making calls on their cell phones. They were heard saying "mistrial" and "innocent" in Spanish as they waited for elevators to leave the courthouse.

"Toughest 45 minutes of my life," said Caridad Gonzalez, Menendez's sister, as she exited the courthouse on the first floor.

Mateo Perez, who has been friends with Menendez for 40 years, said the senator was in good spirits as the trial dragged on. His supporters were delighted with the mistrial. "He wasn't guilty everyone knew it," Perez said in Spanish. "It's a triumph for him and Hispanics."

Even without a verdict, though, the mistrial could put the political career of Menendez in peril should the government decide to retry the case. Up for re-election next year, the senator could face the prospect of running for office at the same time he is defending himself in court if there is another trial.

The final week

The courtroom stalemate came after more than a week and a half of deliberations, marking the most recent setback in a high-profile Justice Department prosecution effort that has already spanned nearly five years and involved grand juries in two different states.

On Monday, Walls denied a previous request for a mistrial after the jury of seven women and five men sent out an earlier note indicating it could not reach a verdict. Walls told them to go home for the day and try again in the morning.

The time apparently did not help. On Wednesday afternoon after the seventh day of deliberations, many jurors were seen leaving the fourth-floor courtroom looking visibly fatigued with their heads down.

Earlier in the week, those same jurors were questioned by the judge over whether they were aware of comments made by a dismissed juror who had been excused from the panel last week because of vacation plans.

In widely-reported remarks, the juror, Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby, 61, of Hillside told reporters that by the end of the jury's first week with the case, the panel was split on whether to convict Menendez of an alleged bribery scheme.

Arroyo-Maultsby also said she had been the only one at the time prepared to acquit Menendez on a separate charge of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms.

Government prosecutors sought to show Menendez had traded the power of his office for bribes from Melgen, both 63, and later intentionally concealed those gifts from the Senate.

Defense attorneys looked to convince the jury that Menendez's meetings with government officials were routine legislative activity, rather than corrupt acts performed on Melgen's behalf. Ultimately, neither Menendez nor Melgen elected to take the stand in their own defense.

Prosecutors had alleged Melgen, an ophthalmologist, had provided the senator with six-figure campaign contributions, luxury hotel stays and private plane flights in exchange for Menendez's intervention on the doctor's behalf in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute, the visa applications of Melgen's foreign girlfriends and a contested port security contract in the Dominican Republic.

Menendez was also accused of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms by intentionally concealing Melgen's gifts.

The defense argued that the gifts came out of 20 years of friendship and that Menendez's staff mistakenly believed they were exempt from disclosure requirements. The defense also argued that Melgen's campaign contributions followed years of financial support for political campaigns outside his home state of Florida.

A long investigation

Menendez, a Union City native who rose through the ranks of Hudson County's Democratic political scene, has maintained his innocence since the Justice Department first announced an indictment against him and Melgen on April 1, 2015.

That indictment was the product of a lengthy investigation by prosecutors and agents from the FBI's Newark Division that went back to 2012, when the FBI began looking into Melgen's billing.

At about the same time, investigators launched a separate investigation into since-debunked allegations of prostitution activity at Melgen's home in the Dominican Republic, fueled by anonymous emails to a Washington, D.C. watchdog group and later to the FBI. The tipster called himself "Pete Williams," an apparent reference to Harrison "Pete" Williams, a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey convicted of bribery in 1981. The individual or group behind the emails were never publicly identified.

The focus of the investigation ultimately turned to Melgen's financial interests and questions over a suspected bribery scheme between the doctor and the senator, using grand juries first in Florida and later in New Jersey to subpoena witnesses ranging from the women identified as Melgen's girlfriends to top members of the senator's staff.

After the charges were announced, Menendez appealed his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but the appeals court refused to throw out the indictment. The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear the case. The defense was also unsuccessful with a motion for acquittal on all charges, based on the Supreme Court's ruling overturning the corruption conviction of former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell.

Walls ruled the high court's decision did not preclude the prosecution's theory in the New Jersey trial, and allowed the case to go the jury.

Melgen was ultimately convicted in Florida in April of federal health care fraud charges stemming from the Medicare dispute, which involved his practice of extracting multiple doses of Lucentis -- a drug to treat macular degeneration -- from vials intended to provide a single dose. In addition to billing Medicare the cost of a new vial of Lucentis for each dose he administered, prosecutors in Florida said Melgen had intentionally misdiagnosed and administered medically unnecessary treatments to hundreds of patients.

The doctor, who is being held in federal custody and has been led into court by deputy U.S. marshals, is scheduled to be sentenced in the health care fraud case in December.

Staff writers Karen Yi, Craig McCarthy, Kelly Heyboer, Len Melisurgo, Luke Nozicka and Ted Sherman contributed to this report.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached by email at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty.