Co-defendant of Sen. Bob Menendez pleads guilty in bribery scheme, will cooperate with feds [New York Daily News]

New York Daily News, The (NY)

A New Jersey businessman charged alongside Sen. Bob Menendez in his sweeping Manhattan bribery case copped to a litany of charges Friday and is cooperating against the embattled pol.

Jose Uribe pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice, tax evasion and related conspiracy counts at an unannounced proceeding in Manhattan federal court, admitting that he paid thousands towards a sports car for Menendez’s wife and co-defendant, Nadine Arslanian.

Uribe is cooperating against the senator, who’s headed to trial in May, according to a copy of his plea agreement obtained by the Daily News.

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, Nicholas Biase, declined to comment. Lawyers for Uribe, 56, of Clifton, N.J., who works in insurance and the trucking business, could not immediately be reached.

Menendez has pleaded not guilty to a host of charges accusing him, among other allegations, of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Egypt by secretly pulling strings for the Middle East nation from his influential perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and similarly abusing his position to advance Qatari interests in exchange for gold bars, flashy watches, and Formula 1 tickets.

Prosecutors have said the Mercedes Benz C-300 convertible worth more than $60,000 was among the gifts showered upon Menendez and his wife in exchange for help thwarting an investigation into associates by the New Jersey attorney general regarding insurance fraud and another probe involving one of his employees.

“Congratulations mon amour de la vie [love of my life], we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” Arslanian is quoted texting her husband in April 2019 in charging papers along with a heart emoji.

Reps for the senator, who stepped down from his chairman role in the wake of his indictment but has refused to resign, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.