Prosecutors at Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial showed jurors hundreds of texts, emails and phone calls over two days that show his girlfriend-turned-wife's desperate financial situation before New Jersey businessmen she had long known came to the rescue.
Prosecutors say the trajectory of the relationship coincided with a bribery scheme that led the senator to help one businessman and codefendant, Wael Hana, win an exclusive contract with Egypt to certify all meat exported there from the United States as meeting religious requirements, while aiding two other businessmen financially and by helping them obtain favorable results with criminal cases in New Jersey.