OAN’s Brooke Mallory
4:10 PM – Tuesday, December 5, 2023
A new report claims that Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey had four gold bars hidden at his house that had previously been stolen from the businessman who is suspected of bribing the legislator.
According to NBC, the serial numbers on some of the gold bars that the FBI discovered during a raid in June 2022 on Menendez’s house in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, match the ones that Fred Daibes reported to police during an armed robbery in 2013.
During the 2013 theft, thieves stole 22 gold bars and $500,000 in cash from Daibes’ Edgewater, New Jersey, home, according to the outlet.
Authorities arrested four suspects and confiscated the stolen gold.
Police have established a clear connection between Daibes, a real estate developer in New Jersey and fundraiser for Menendez, and at least some of the gold discovered in Menendez’s residence based on the matching serial numbers.
Daibes is said to have bought the senator’s cooperation in obstructing a federal prosecution of him, among other favors.
“Each gold bar has its own serial number,” Daibes told investigators in 2014. “They’re all stamped … you’ll never see two stamped the same way.”
Daibes also confirmed that the bars truly belonged to him by signing “property release forms” in order to receive the gold back.
Federal corruption accusations against Menendez, 69, concerning an alleged multi-year bribery conspiracy were brought against him in September.
Menendez and his 56-year-old wife Nadine are accused by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York of three conspiracy counts related to an alleged “corrupt bribery agreement” that benefited the couple, three New Jersey businessmen named Daibes, Wael Hana, and Jose Uribe, as well as the Egyptian government.
According to the prosecution, Daibes delivered Nadine two one-kilogram gold bars in March 2022, at a time when the price of gold was $60,000 per kilogram (132,277.36 lbs).
Details of the indictment described how Daibes’ driver’s fingerprints were subsequently found on an envelope that contained thousands of dollars in cash, which was taken from the couple’s residence.
The FBI discovered a total of thirteen gold bars and $566,000 in cash, some of which were put into the senators’ jacket pockets, during its investigation into the suspected bribery plot.
Menendez has often been urged to step down from his position in the Senate, including by other Democrats like Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.), but he has adamantly denied any misconduct.
He and his spouse are said to have taken bribes from Daibes in return for the senator’s assistance in defending him against criminal charges related to bank fraud.
According to reports, the New Jersey Democrat assisted Daibes by suggesting that President Biden appoint Philip Sellinger to the position of United States attorney for New Jersey.
Menendez may spend up to 45 years in jail if he is found guilty on all counts.
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