Gonzalez, 80, testified that she was not taken aback when her younger brother, the beleaguered veteran Democrat, once asked her to retrieve $500 in cash from a shoebox in his closet in the 1980s. At the time, she was employed as his legal secretary.
According to The New York Post, Gonzalez explained that Menendez, 70, who was born in Manhattan, inherited a deep-seated mistrust of banks from their father. Their father, a successful bowtie businessman in Cuba, had run into trouble with local authorities. "He would always say, 'Don't trust the banks, you must always have money at home,'" Gonzalez quoted their father. She further elaborated, "Every Cuban that came to the US, you would find that they would have cash in their home, because in Cuba they can take everything away from you, whether you like it or not."
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The federal charges against Senator Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, include accepting over $566,000 in cash, $150,000 in gold bars, and other gifts. Allegedly, Menendez used his influential position as the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to grant favors to local businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Evidence presented at the trial revealed that FBI agents found large amounts of cash during a raid on the Menendez's Englewood Cliffs residence in June 2022.
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Gonzalez, the first witness called by Menendez's defense attorneys, testified for just over an hour on Monday. She described her close relationship with the senator, having helped raise him during their childhood in Union City and Hoboken. When prosecutor Lara Pomerantz asked her, "Is it fair to say you love your brother?" she responded affirmatively.
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The defense also called upon Nadine's sister, Katia Tabourian, who testified about Nadine's long-standing relationship with gold bars. Tabourian stated that Nadine had inherited their grandmother's cherished gold bar collection after her death. "I got the gold coins, and my sister got my grandmother's gold bars," Tabourian told jurors, adding that having a safe in the closet was a common practice among people of their Lebanese heritage.
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The defense attorneys for Senator Menendez have argued that the gold bars found in the Menendez home belonged solely to Nadine, who they claim was not involved in the alleged bribery scheme. Nadine's trial will be separate from her husband's as she is currently recovering from breast cancer. She has not attended his trial.
Despite the ongoing case, Menendez has declined to resign from office and has announced his intention to run again as an independent, following his defeat in June's Democratic Primary to Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) by a significant margin.
