Judges tosses some Menendez charges
A federal judge overseeing the corruption case against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and a Florida ophthalmologist on Monday dismissed some bribery charges, though allowed most to stand.
{mosads}U.S. District Court Judge William Walls tossed out four bribery charges from the 22-count indictment: two against Menendez and two parallel charges for his friend and political donor Salomon Melgen.
The judge dismissed the bribery charges in relation to $40,000 in donations from Melgen to a legal defense fund allegedly benefitting Menendez in return for favorable treatment from the public official.
Walls said it wasn’t specific enough for the indictment to merely say Melgen donated to the Fund to Uphold the Constitution “in order to influence Menendez’s official acts, as opportunities arose.”
However, the judge rejected arguments that another approximately $700,000 in donations for state political groups and funds for Menendez’s reelection were protected by the First Amendment.
“Defendants are correct that attempts to influence a public official through speech alone are protected. But the Constitution does not protect an attempt to influence a public official’s acts through improper means, such as the bribery scheme that has been alleged in this case,” the judge wrote.
“The government has adequately alleged that Melgen made contributions in an effort to control the exercise of Menendez’s official duties, and the truth of these allegations is a question of fact,” he added.
The judge also rejected a series of motions filed by the defendants to toss the case on grounds that it included inadmissible material from a lawmaker protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause and that the case involved procedural misconduct from when it was presented to a grand jury.
Menendez and Melgen have pleaded not guilty to charges unveiled in April that the ophthalmologist gave the senator gifts and money in exchange for the senator using his position to benefit the donor.
Federal prosecutors have accused Menendez of accepting those gifts in exchange for getting visas for Melgen’s foreign girlfriends, helping with a contract dispute with the Dominican Republic and advocating the eye specialist’s interests before the Obama administration in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute.
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