Menendez Rests Bribery Defense After Mistrial Bid Rejected
- Eight-week trial of senator and friend nears its conclusion
- Closing arguments may begin as early as Wednesday morning
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U.S. Senator Robert Menendez and his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, rested their defense in a New Jersey corruption trial on Monday after a judge rejected their request for a mistrial.
Eight weeks of occasionally star-studded testimony by the likes of Senator Cory Booker and former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius came to an anticlimactic conclusion. The final defense witness was a law firm analyst who testified about flight records in a bid to show that Menendez’s frequent travels to Melgen’s Dominican Republic home were part of a long-term friendship, rather than a corrupt pact between the men.