Star Menendez witness is questioned about ‘his lies and his cheating’
NEW YORK — For days, as the government’s star witness was testifying against him, Sen. Bob Menendez offered much the same comment each time he exited his bribery trial in Manhattan: “Wait for the cross and find the truth.”
On Tuesday, that cross-examination began with a blistering volley of questions aimed at undermining the testimony of Jose Uribe, a disgraced insurance broker who pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to bribe Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz and is cooperating with federal prosecutors.
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“You lied to customers?” Adam Fee, one of Menendez’s lawyers, asked Uribe.
“You lied to a bank?” he added.
“You lied to the federal government?” he continued.
Uribe, 57, acknowledged that he had lied to all three, leading Fee to call him a “sophisticated liar” who was willing to put his family members in legal jeopardy to cover up his crimes.
Uribe, who also pleaded guilty in 2011 to insurance fraud charges in New Jersey, maintained his composure during hours of aggressive cross-examination, even as he avoided answering many questions by claiming he had “no recollection” of certain events.
On Monday, however, Uribe had offered detailed testimony about several face-to-face meetings he had with Menendez during his quest to enlist the senator’s help to “stop and kill” an insurance fraud investigation that implicated Uribe and two of his close associates.
Uribe’s firsthand account went to the heart of the government’s case against Menendez, a Democrat charged with accepting bribes of cash, gold and the Mercedes-Benz in exchange for meddling in criminal investigations, steering aid to Egypt and propping up a friend’s halal meat certification monopoly.
Uribe told jurors that he and Menendez discussed the insurance fraud case in a private, hourlong conversation on the eve of a Sept. 6, 2019, meeting the senator had scheduled with a former New Jersey attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal.
Grewal testified last week that during his brief sit-down at the senator’s office in Newark, New Jersey, he flatly refused Menendez’s overture to discuss a specific case.
Still, hours after that meeting ended, Menendez summoned Uribe to his apartment building to offer reassurance. “That thing that you asked me about — it doesn’t seem to be anything there,” Uribe testified the senator told him.
Uribe has pleaded guilty to providing Nadine Menendez, the senator’s wife, with the Mercedes and making the car’s monthly payments for more than two years, in exchange for gaining the senator’s “power.”
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