Corruption trial of US Senator Bob Menendez begins in New York
- Democrat is accused of accepting bribes of gold and cash to deliver favours that would help 3 businessmen
- Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman is also charged with acting as an agent of Egypt
US Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat, went on trial in Manhattan federal court Monday, accused of accepting bribes of gold and cash to use his influence to deliver favours that would help three New Jersey businessmen.
Menendez, 70, sat with his lawyers and listened as Judge Sidney H Stein told several dozen prospective jurors about the charges against Menendez and two of the businessmen.
The judge told them the “sitting US senator from the state of New Jersey” had been charged in a conspiracy in which he allegedly “agreed to accept bribes and accepted bribes”.
After he warned them that the trial was expected to last up to seven weeks, Stein let jurors raise their hands if they believed they could not serve for that length of time. Then, he took them one at a time into a separate room to ask them why.
