Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey is indicted in Manhattan on bribery charges [New York Daily News]

Sen. Bob Menendez has been charged in a sweeping bribery case, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said Friday, the latest legal challenge for the New Jersey Democrat.

Menendez, 69, who was previously charged with corruption in a separate case that ended in a mistrial, was accused Friday of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in return for favors for three New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government.

Menendez is one of 13 U.S. senators in history who have been indicted, according to the Senate Historical Office.

Menendez has served in the Senate since 2006 and as chair of the chamber’s powerful Foreign Relations Committee for the last decade. The new charges against Menendez followed a years-long probe by federal prosecutors.

The indictment also charged Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez. She began dating the senator in 2018, and they married in 2020, according to charging papers.

The 39-page indictment said bribes taken by the couple included “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other things of value.”

Among other allegations, Sen. Menendez is accused of intervening in a state insurance fraud case in exchange for a convertible Mercedes-Benz for his wife.

“Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” said a text the senator received from his wife after the deal, according to the indictment.

Menendez’s office and his lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was scheduled to speak about the charges at a news conference on Friday morning.

The indictment said that federal agents who searched Menendez’s home last year as part of the probe uncovered more than $480,000 in cash crammed into sometimes curious locations — including closets and clothing — and more than $100,000 worth of gold bars.

The charging papers included images of the gleaming gold and jackets carrying Menendez’s name that were covered in piles of cash.

The three businessmen — the Egyptian-raised Wael Hana; Jose Uribe, who works in trucking and insurance; and Fred Daibes; a real estate developer and bank founder — were also charged in the case.

The last Democratic senator to be indicted was Harrison Williams, also of New Jersey, who was convicted in 1981 in a bribery case, and died in 2001.

In 2015, Menendez was indicted in a federal bribery case. The case culminated in a hung jury, and prosecutors dropped the charges.

“I’ve made my share of mistakes,” he said in 2017, after a federal judge in New Jersey announced the hung jury. “But my mistakes were never a crime.”

He was reelected in 2018. He has planned to run for reelection again next year.

Court papers said Menendez’s relationship with the businessmen started in 2018 and continued through last year.

Menendez is accused of pressuring a U.S. Agriculture Department official to protect an arrangement giving Hana’s halal company an exclusive monopoly on halal exports from the U.S. to Egypt.

Menendez meddled on Hana’s behalf two days after meeting him in his office and going out for steaks, according to the indictment.

Court papers said the Agriculture Department official pushed back on Menendez, declaring the halal monopoly detrimental to U.S. interests, but that Hana’s business — IS EG Halal — kept its monopoly.

IS EG Halal did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Menendez is further accused of intervening in a state insurance fraud probe related to Uribe and recommending a U.S. attorney for appointment he believed would stall a criminal investigation into Daibes.

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