The wife of former Sen. Bob Menendez, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, has been convicted of helping her husband collect bribes.

Arslanian Menendez was charged in a sprawling indictment brought by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York on 15 counts including bribery, extortion and obstruction of justice in a multi-level scheme that traded in envelopes of cash, gold bars and a new Mercedes for official acts that benefited Qatar and Egypt.

She was found guilty on all 15 counts on Monday afternoon in federal court in lower Manhattan. U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein set sentencing for June 12.

The federal indictment against Arslanian Menendez and her husband was first unsealed in September 2023 and was updated with superseding indictments three times — in October of that year and in January and March 2024. It alleged that Menendez, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen, Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe, were part of a bribery scheme. Menendez and his wife allegedly received, among other things, cash, gold bars and a luxury car in exchange for the use of his political influence.

After a nine-week trial last summer, Menendez, Daibes and Hana were found guilty on a combination of 18 counts, including bribery.

After the verdict, Arslanian Menendez’s attorney Barry Coburn addressed the media outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Court House. She stood next to him, wearing dark sunglasses and a pink mask.

“We respect the judge and we respect the jury for its hard work,” Coburn said. “None the less this is a very rough day for us. You know, [there is] no doubt in my mind that the jury thinks what they found was right. There’s no point in me standing and debating that. But, this is not over. There will be other days.”

e said that Arslanian Menendez would not be addressing the press directly when she was asked about her health. He also had “no comment” on where the former senator was.

Coburn said they were “devastated” by verdict and that they “fought hard and it hurts.” He also said it is “quite possible” that Arslanian Menendez would seek a delay in sentencing.

During the senator's trial, his attorney put the blame on his wife, calling her "dazzling," and said they had separate lives even while living together. Arslanian hid financial challenges from her husband before they met and during their time together, Menendez's lawyer, Avi Weitzman, said in his opening remarks. Weitzman also pointed out that the now-infamous gold bars were found in Arslanian’s locked closet, not Menendez's.

The jury in Arslanian Menendez's trial deliberated for several hours Friday afternoon and again on Monday before reaching a verdict.

“The government needed to prove that she was part of funneling bribes to her husband and if she knew what she was doing,” Epner said. “The granular details were not as important in the way they were with him.”

Menendez, Daibes and Hana have all filed motions for new trials and are seeking bail as their appeals play out. After making his initial motion, Daibes was assigned to the prison camp at FCI Fairton, in South Jersey. Hana was assigned to FCI Schuylkill in Minersville, Pennsylvania.

Daibes and Hana will report to federal prison on May 19, after Stein granted each a 45-day extension to allow them to prepare and then testify at the Arslanian Menendez trial.

Daibes and Hana never testified. Having Daibes and Hana on a witness list was “clearly a strategy” Epner said.

Putting them on a witness list gave lawyers the option to call them. “At the end of the day, the downside of calling them was not worth whatever they were going to get with any positive testimony,” he said.

The cross-examination of Hana and Daibes would have had them say they were convicted of bribery and note that they are appealing the verdicts. “So they would have every reason in the world to say nothing bad happened here.”

'Trump is right': Menendez decries 'corrupted' justice system after 11-year sentence

How did prosecutors frame their arguments?

During closing statements, the prosecution rehashed the hundreds of thousands of dollars stuffed in jackets and shoes and gold bars found in Nadine and Bob Menendez's Englewood Cliffs home.

t this trial you learned where all these valuables came from. You learned that they were bribes that the defendant demanded and collected from Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes in exchange for promises that the senator, her partner in crime, would take official action," United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Paul Monteleoni said.

Monteleoni referred to Nadine and Bob as "partners in crime" who put his "power up for sale" while Nadine demanded and collected payments.

"They promised he would take action in exchange for those bribes," Monteleoni said.

Those promises included approval of military aid to Egypt, providing Egypt with sensitive information about Americans stationed abroad, and helping Egypt in other ways. They also included a promise of Menendez putting pressure on a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to stop opposing a monopoly that Egypt was giving to Hana’s halal certification company. The senator promised he would pressure the New Jersey attorney general to disrupt a criminal investigation and prosecution of associates of Hana and Uribe, and to try to interfere with Daibes’ federal criminal prosecution, Monteleoni outlined in his closing remarks.