When news broke that Senator Bob Menendez had been indicted on bribery charges, it wasn’t exactly shocking. The senator had already been charged with bribery back in 2015 but was never convicted. But while the charges themselves may be nothing new, the details of the case are, at the very least, entertaining. We’re talking cash-stuffed jackets, a new Mercedes-Benz, and literal gold bars here. And that’s not even getting into the damning text messages and Google searches. But while a luxury car is pretty run-of-the-mill by comparison, it sounds like there’s actually a much darker story behind it.
The New York Times reports that in December 2018, at about 7:30 p.m., Nadine Arslanian, Menendez’s now-wife, hit 49-year-old Richard Koop with her car. Koop was taken to the hospital and declared dead. Instead of being arrested, Arslanian was allowed to leave the scene and the crash was essentially written off as an accident. Alcohol and marijuana were found in Koop’s system, but Arslanian was never tested.
“It is determined that at this time Ms. Arslanian was not at fault for the motor vehicle crash and that Mr. Koop was jaywalking,” a police officer wrote in his report.
That’s a common outcome in a lot of cases, but the story only gets sketchier from there. About 30 minutes after the so-called accident, a man claiming to be a retired police officer showed up to help Arslanian. In a recording at the scene, he can be heard saying, “I don’t even know her. That’s my buddy’s wife who’s friends with her. He said could you do me a favor and take her up there, because her friend just got in a car accident.” He later asked officers if they planned to get prosecutors involved, and they responded saying they planned to release her.
Considering how common it is for prosecutors to decline to charge drivers who kill pedestrians with their car, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know whether Menendez and his associates pressured law enforcement to let her go. But considering the other charges and his history, at the very least, it sounds sketchy as hell.
The crash also left Arslanian without a car. Instead of simply buying or leasing a new one, court papers reportedly allege that she texted Wael Hana, a longtime friend and Egyptian-American businessman who has also been charged along with the Menendezes complaining that she didn’t have a car. Not long after that, prosecutors say Menendez and Jose Uribe, a close associate of Hana, struck a deal — Menendez would pressure the New Jersey attorney general’s office to let one of Uribe’s associates off the hook, and in exchange, Uribe would give her a new car.
In a text message obtained by prosecutors, Arslanian told Hana, “All is GREAT! I’m so excited to get a car next week. !!” By April, she had it. A Mercedes-Benz C 300 Convertible reportedly valued at $60,000. Not an S-Class or even an E-Class Convertible. “Congratulations mon amour de la vie,” she texted her now-husband. “We are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes.”
Based on the evidence that’s available, it’s entirely possible that Arslanian didn’t do anything wrong when she killed Koop. But to then turn around and allegedly use Menendez’s corrupt influence to upgrade to a nicer, new Mercedes is just dark.
The New York Times has a lot more details on the crash, so if you can, be sure to head over there and read the whole thing.