By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The former New Jersey attorney general Gurbir Grewal testified at U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s corruption trial on Thursday that the lawmaker sought to intervene in a local criminal case, including a meeting that Grewal’s deputy described as “gross.”
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have said Menendez sought to have Grewal, the state’s top prosecutor from 2018 through 2021, intervene in cases involving two associates of insurance and trucking businessman Jose Uribe.
In exchange, Uribe allegedly helped Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez buy a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible with money disguised as a loan.
Uribe pleaded guilty this year to fraud and bribery charges and is expected to testify against Bob Menendez.
Testifying for the prosecution, Grewal said Menendez objected in a January 2019 phone call and September 2019 meeting that the attorney general’s insurance fraud unit treated Hispanic defendants in the trucking industry different from others.
Upon being told by Menendez that the senator was referring to a specific case, Grewal said he advised Menendez to instruct the defendant’s lawyer to go through proper channels by speaking with individual prosecutors.
“I can’t talk to you about this,” Grewal said he told Menendez at the September meeting at the senator’s office in Newark, which Grewal’s deputy Andrew Bruck also attended.
Now head of enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Grewal said Menendez did not identify the case or ask for specific help, but that it was “pretty unprecedented” for an elected official to ask about a pending criminal matter.
“Andrew said to me, ‘Whoa, that was gross,’” Grewal said Bruck told him after the September meeting.
Menendez’s lawyer Avi Weitzman later sought to portray Menendez’s conduct as normal advocacy for a constituent.
“He didn’t tell you, ‘You’d better look at this or I’m going to haul you in front of Congress?’” Weitzman asked Grewal when cross-examining him.
“No,” Grewal replied.
Menendez, 70, a three-term Democratic senator, has pleaded not guilty to 16 criminal charges including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction.
Prosecutors have said Menendez and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes including cash, mortgage payments and gold bars in exchange for political favors and aiding the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Menendez has resisted calls from former Democratic allies to resign, but stepped down as chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee after he was charged in September.
He is seeking re-election on Nov. 5 as an independent, but his unpopularity with voters makes it an uphill battle.
U.S. Representative Andy Kim on Tuesday won New Jersey’s Democratic primary for Menendez’s seat.
Earlier in the trial, Menendez’s lawyers blamed his wife for concealing her financial dealings from him.
Nadine Menendez has pleaded not guilty. Her trial was postponed to July because she is being treated for breast cancer. Her husband’s trial could last through June.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Alistair Bell)
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