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Sen. Bob Menendez and his spouse, Nadine Menendez, have requested a federal pass judgement on to grant them separate trials, arguing that the couple can be pressured to testify in opposition to every different if they're attempted in combination.
Nadine Menendez's attorneys stated in a courtroom submitting Monday that a joint trial together with her husband "will undoubtedly prejudice Ms. Menendez’s right to defend herself at a fair trial." The senator's testimony, they stated, may just come with "revealing confidential marital communications" between them this is "essential" to his protection.
The New Jersey Democrat's attorneys submitted a separate submitting later that day that incorporated a identical request for his case to be severed from his spouse's, announcing it might differently put him in a "Catch-22" state of affairs. Being attempted in combination as a pair, they argued, “threatens” his proper to an even trial as a result of it might drive him to “choose between two fundamental rights: his right to testify in his own defense and his right not to testify against his spouse.”
The senator’s protection crew additionally claimed that federal prosecutors had filed the case within the incorrect judicial district and requested the pass judgement on to switch the case to New Jersey, for the reason that the indictment “alleges a series of distinctly New Jersey-based schemes.”
Bob Menendez and his spouse have been indicted on bribery and corruption fees that allege they authorised money and gold bars in trade for political favors to profit the governments of Qatar and Egypt. Prosecutors additionally allege that the senator, whilst serving as chairman of the Senate Overseas Family members Committee, conspired to act as international agent.
The couple and their co-defendants have pleaded no longer in charge, and Bob Menendez went as far as to say that he used to be being focused on account of his ethnicity — an issue that has angered a few of his Latino colleagues. He stepped down from his committee place after the indictment, however he has to this point resisted calls from colleagues to renounce from the Senate.