Former Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Menendez appeared in a Manhattan court after getting arraigned on March 11, 2024, in a federal bribery case. The two were indicted for taking bribes of gold bars, cash, a luxury car, and more in exchange for using Menendez’s influence to help several businessmen, as well as the governments of Egypt and Qatar. (Spencer Platt | Getty Images)
An attorney for former Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife, whose breast cancer treatment has repeatedly delayed her federal bribery trial, wants another delay.
But this time, the requested delay has nothing to do with Nadine Menendez. Instead, her attorney Barry Coburn is worried her trial, now set for Jan. 21 in Manhattan, will interfere with the trial in Washington, D.C., of Nathaniel Noyce, an accused Jan. 6 rioter who Coburn also represents.
The judge in Noyce’s case set his trial for March 17 to accommodate federal Judge Sidney H. Stein’s order that both sides in Nadine Menendez’s case should keep January and February clear so she can be tried.
But in a Monday filing, Coburn wrote that Nadine Menendez’s trial is likely to be lengthier than the 10-week trial her husband and two co-defendants endured earlier this year, because her medical condition will require her to take frequent breaks.
He’s also considering putting on “a significant affirmative defense case,” which could lengthen the trial beyond the March date when he’s due to defend Noyce, Coburn wrote. Under such a defense strategy, the defendant essentially admits the actions they’re accused of, but offers an excuse, justification, or something else to dodge liability.
“It is respectfully submitted that the trial in Ms. [Menendez’s] case should be continued to avoid this conflict,” Coburn wrote.
Noyce, of Richmond, Virginia, was charged with eight crimes, including assaulting officers and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building, and faces a trial that’s expected to last two weeks, according to Coburn’s filing. Prosecutors in that case have objected to delays, Coburn wrote.
Coburn also filed to the court a partially redacted Nov. 12 letter from Nadine Menendez’s doctor, who reported “significant delays” that include “media and public interest in her legal issues making leaving her house and traveling to my office difficult.”
Dr. Stephanie Cohen, a plastic surgeon based in Bergen County, said she sees no physical impairment that would prevent Nadine Menendez from appearing in court for a trial.
Still, she wrote, “I can say in my experience that most women cannot focus on non-breast related issues in their lives until the completion procedure is finished and most will delay even minor events such as vacations, celebrations, even job changes until it is done.”
Nadine Menendez faces more than a dozen criminal charges relating to a corruption scheme that earned her husband and two co-defendants a guilty-on-all-counts conviction in July. Stein severed Nadine Menendez’s case from theirs last spring because of her cancer diagnosis, and her case has been delayed several times since then.
Prosecutors have said she began injecting herself into her husband’s political doings just weeks after they began dating in 2018, becoming the go-between linking the former senator to the men who gave them cash, gold bars, a luxury car, and other valuables for political favors. Bob Menendez’s defense team blamed his wife for his troubles, saying she took money and made deals without his knowledge.
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