Senator. Robert Menendez’s trial for corruption is continuing with additional FBI testimony regarding the search of his the house
The FBI took 11 gold bars of one ounce, two gold bars that weigh one kilogram, and $486,461 of the New Jersey Democrat’s home.
By Caitlin Yilek
The day after jurors took the gold bars weighing one kilogram confiscated of Senator. Bob Menendez’s residence in their own hands they’ll get more details about the FBI agent who conducted the search for Menendez’s home. New Jersey Democrat’s home in June 2022.
The lawyers for Menendez will continue to question FBI Agent Aristotelis Kougemitros today.
Kougemitros disclosed to prosecutors that his team largely eluded all “flashy” FBI trappings when they arrived at the split-level Englewood Cliffs home Menendez shares with his wife, Nadine, to serve a warrant for a search.
“We came with unmarked vehicles, which we normally have, but we had less of them,” said the officer. explained. “We didn’t have a large group, which we normally have for a search. We wore subdued markings that identify us. We were sensitive that we were searching the home and executing a search warrant of a United States senator.”
Nobody was at present at the time the investigation, so the team of agents entered the code into the garage which was where a black Mercedes-Benz convertible in the garage, and then entered the home, he claimed. The FBI agent said they needed to get a locksmith’s help to unlock several doors within the home, including the ones that lead to the main bedroom as well as the closets.
Kougemitros claimed that Kougemitros said that the FBI is authorized to search for valuable items and seize fifty-two items of value from their residence which included cellphones as well as gold, cash and jewellery.
In one closet they discovered a one-kilogram gold bar in the Ziploc bag, which was wrapped in a newspaper towel, as he was able to testify. In the same closet, they found a safe that contained loose money, envelopes of cash as well as seven one-ounce gold bars and a gold bar of one kilogram as per Kougemitros. Cash was also discovered elsewhere within the home Kougemitros said, reminiscing about the discovery of $100,000 in an duffel bag as well as hundreds of thousands more hidden in jacket pockets and boots.
“The amount of cash that we began to discover was so voluminous that I directed the team that we would no longer be photographing any of the cash; we would be seizing the cash, because I believed it was evidence potentially of a crime,” the officer said.
It was so full of cash the FBI agent told him the agent, that he contacted reinforcements. There were two FBI agents from Manhattan “brought two cash-counting machines,” Kougemitros told reporters.
In all the FBI took 11 one-ounce gold bars two one-kilogram gold bars, and $486,461 of cash, he declared.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz repeatedly drew attention to the gold and cash bars found in the home of the couple in her statement to the public on Wednesday, claiming that they were given to Senator John McCain from New Jersey businessmen as bribes to obtain favors in the political arena.
In the course of interviewing Kougemitros she presented the jury with an image she took while searching for an envelope that contained $7,400 in cash. The envelope was stamped in the signature of Fred A. Daibes and an Edgewater, New Jersey, address.
Menendez is currently being tried along with Daibes, who is a New Jersey real estate developer as well as Wael Hana, the owner of the Halal meat business IS EG Halal, who are accused of bribing Senator Menendez. The three defendants have all admitted that they are not to be guilty.
Another businessman accused, Jose Uribe, has pleaded guilty in March. He confessed to having purchased the wife of Menendez an $60,000 Mercedes convertible in order to influence senators. Uribe will testify in the trial.
The following day, Adam Fee, a lawyer for Menendez attempted to cast doubt as to whether Senator Menendez had access to the bedroom closet, where the gold bars and safe were located, asking the FBI agent on the whereabouts of a blue blazer which investigators are linking to Menendez.
On Wednesday, another attorney representing Menendez, Avi Weitzman, claimed Menendez was not armed with an access key for the cupboard.
–Nathalie Nieves contributed reporting.
Caitlin Yilek is a political reporter for cbsnews.com and is located within Washington, D.C. She was previously employed by the Washington Examiner and The Hill and was part in the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship in the National Press Foundation.
