Judge acquits Sen. Bob Menendez on several bribery charges, but others remain

The federal judge who presided over the corruption trial of Bob Menendez last fall acquitted the senator Wednesday of the three biggest bribery charges, saying there was no evidence presented to a jury last year that $660,000 in campaign contributions from co-defendant Salomon Melgen were given as part of a corrupt bargain.

"There is no there there," U.S. District Judge William H. Walls wrote about the case surrounding the contributions, quoting the description that arts patron and author Gertrude Stein gave to her home town of Oakland, Calif., in her autobiography.

But Walls left intact charges connected to luxury trips Menendez took to Paris and the Caribbean. The octogenarian jurist, whom defense attorneys complained took the government's side often during the case, also removed himself from further involvement in the case.

The ruling came on a defense motion to acquit Menendez and Melgen on all 18 counts, which was filed after a deadlocked jury led to a mistrial last fall.

The Justice Department notified Walls last week that it wanted to retry Menendez "at the earliest possible date." Menendez, who is up for re-election in November, said through his office he "fully expects to be vindicated."

READ THE OPINION: Judge acquits on some counts

Abbe Lowell, the senator’s lead attorney, suggested Wednesday that the government’s case was falling apart.

"A jury rejected the government's facts and theory of bribery, and now the trial judge has rejected a critical legal theory on which the case was brought," Lowell said in a statement. "The decision of the DOJ to retry the case makes even less sense than it did last week and we hope it would be reconsidered."

"The Justice Department is reviewing the court’s order and considering next steps," a department spokeswoman said in a statement.

Menendez, a Democrat from Paramus, and Melgen, an ophthalmologist from Florida, were indicted in April 2015 on charges they had a corrupt deal under which Melgen provided Menendez with campaign contributions and luxury travel and accommodations in exchange for Menendez using his office to help Melgen personally and financially.

Walls ruled that the jury would have to speculate that the political contributions were related to actions Menendez took to benefit Melgen, including:

Advocating on his behalf with federal officials to obtain visas for Melgen's foreign girlfriends to visit him in Florida;

Questioning Medicare officials about $9 million Melgen had overcharged the government; and

Trying to pressure the Dominican government about a cargo screening contract held by a company Melgen owned.

In acquitting the senator on charges related to a $300,000 contribution Melgen gave to a super PAC that supported Menendez’s re-election in 2012, for example, Walls said that even though it was clear Menendez had advocated for Melgen in the Medicare dispute, the government did not prove it was connected to the contribution.

“There is no evidence the defendants actually met at the fundraiser or, if they did, what if anything they talked about,” Walls wrote. “A single meeting before the official act and political contribution, without more, is not sufficient evidence from which a jury might infer an explicit quid pro quo.”

In addition to the three bribery charges, Walls also acquitted Menendez on one count of honest services mail fraud that was tied to one of Melgen’s political contributions. The doctor was acquitted on the same counts.

But Menendez still faces three other bribery counts related to flights he took on Melgen's private plane and a Paris hotel suite Melgen paid for with American Express points.

He also faces two counts of honest services fraud, one count of conspiracy, one count of interstate travel to carry out bribery and one count of making false statements on his congressional financial disclosures to conceal the crimes.

Melgen faces the same charges except for the false statements accusation. The fraud charges carry the most serious penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Walls ruled that the men could still be found guilty on the remaining counts.

“All of Menendez’s alleged official acts occurred during the relatively short period of January 2006 through January 2013, and during the same period Melgen gave Menendez a stay in an upscale Parisian hotel, various flights without cost, and stays at Melgen’s villa in the Dominican Republic,” Walls wrote in his opinion. “A rational juror could conclude from the activities of these defendants there was an implicit agreement to exchange things of value for official acts."

Menendez’s first trial was a grueling, 11-week affair that ended in a hung jury shortly before Thanksgiving.

Despite spending more than four years pursuing the case and then calling three dozen witnesses and entering hundreds of documents into evidence at the trial, federal prosecutors were not able to convince jurors that Menendez and Melgen had struck a corrupt bargain.

One juror told reporters afterward that the jury was divided 10-2 in favor of acquitting the senator.

Melgen attorney Kirk Ogrosky issued a statement Wednesday calling the judge's acquittal on several counts "overdue."

"There was simply never any quid pro quo agreement between my client and Sen. Menendez, and the court has now acquitted these two longtime Hispanic-American friends on all counts that involved political contributions," he said in a statement. "Hopefully, this Department of Justice will read the court’s decision and drop the remainder of the case.”