Senator Bob Menendez and his wife request that they be tried separately in a New York court on corruption charges against them.
The New Jersey Democrat and his wife Nadine were accused in the fall of helping three New Jersey businessmen in return for cash, gold bars and a luxury car.
Nadine Menendez's lawyers requested the separation in documents filed Monday evening because the senator may want to testify at the trial that begins in May and disclose marital correspondence that she wants to keep secret.
Bob Menendez's lawyers wrote that each spouse should face a separate trial to prevent the senator from revealing information about communications from the spouse during the hearing that could harm the wife's defense.
They ask the judge not to force him “to choose between two fundamental rights: the right to testify in his own defense and the right not to testify against his spouse”.
motions for separate trials were filed Monday evening as part of several pretrial motions by attorneys for the defendants in the case.
days earlier, the senator's lawyers filed a motion to dismiss charges in the case. They added to these demands on Monday, calling the allegations against him a “distortion of the truth.”"
“Not only is Senator Menendez “innocent,” he is also innocent of these allegations. “Senator Menendez has never sold his position or abused his power or influence for personal financial gain,” they wrote.
Since the first allegations were made against the senator in September, he has been forced to resign from his influential position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prosecutors also escalated the corruption charges, alleging that he conspired with his wife and a businessman to secretly promote Egyptian interests and that he behaved favorably toward the Qatari government by helping the man in the business.
“The prosecution at every point misrepresents or ignores evidence that reflects the Senator’s conduct on behalf of American – and only American – interests and his decades of work in this area,” the lawyers said.
“What’s worse is that the government knows. The government withheld evidence of Senator Menendez's innocence, including evidence that directly contradicted the allegations in the indictment. “The defense is prohibited from revealing anything to the public – a redacted and sealed document is required – even as the government has launched its own media attack to spread its false narrative,” the lawyers said.
's lawyers also argued that the trial should not have been held in New York because almost everything that allegedly happened took place in New Jersey or outside of New York.
“This case belongs to New Jersey,” they said.
The lawyers noted that Menendez had won an earlier corruption case in New Jersey in which "at least 10 jurors voted to acquit the senator of exaggerated allegations of government corruption."
A spokesman for the public prosecutor's office declined to comment. Prosecutors will respond to all pretrial motions with their arguments within a few weeks.