Bob Menendez’s Disastrous Romance

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This is On the Media's Midweek Podcast.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Yesterday, former Senator Bob Menendez began an 11-year prison sentence for political corruption.

Last week, we shared the first episode of a mini-series about Gold Bar Bob, A Deeper Look into the Man Behind the Headlines, reported by Nancy Solomon for WNYC.

And this week's installment introduces a key chapter in Menendez's political downfall: his romance with a woman named Nadine Arslanian.

On New Year's Eve, 2017,

life was looking up for Senator Bob Menendez.

He had just finished another trial on bribery charges, hung jury.

Tracy Tully is the New York Times reporter I talked with in the last episode.

She covers New Jersey.

So he's free for the first time in many years because he'd been under investigation since 2015.

Menendez was also romantically free.

His fiancé had dumped him right before the 2017 trial, and a tall blonde woman he'd had his eye on sent him a text on New Year's Eve.

And you could see her,

you know, trying to drum up a new relationship with this guy who's suddenly no longer charged with bribery.

Five years later, transcripts of these texts ended up as evidence in court.

In four and a half hours, it's going to be your birthday, the message from Nadine Arslanian says.

I will text you happy birthday, and I hope it's going to be the best year ever for you.

And I would like to take you out to lunch for your birthday.

I'm looking forward to catching up.

Nadine.

The senator replied, would love to get together, but as I said once before, I don't want to interfere with your boyfriend.

A few weeks later, they appear to have resolved that issue.

On February 2nd, they went out on a a date to Acapella West, an upscale Italian restaurant in Jersey known for playing Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett in heavy rotation.

Nadine texted Bob just before midnight.

Thank you for a great night.

He replied, Glad you're home safe.

Enjoyed your company.

We'll have to do it again.

Exclamation point.

Pretty typical first date stuff.

What came next was anything but

I'm Nancy Solomon.

This is episode two of Dead End, the rise and fall of gold bar Bob Menendez.

In three parts, we're telling a story of love and corruption that was surprising even by Jersey standards.

A steamy romance, a powerful senator, Egyptian spies, and a crooked deal that traded a lucrative halal meat monopoly for U.S.

military aid.

And there's the gold bars and stacks of cash stuffed into the senator's boots, jacket pockets, and various shopping bags around the house.

More than half a million dollars worth.

And it's all planned out in texts and voicemails that were entered into evidence in court.

Bob and Nadine Menendez and their co-conspirators were convicted of bribery and other charges.

And the paper trail begins in February 2018 after that first date.

The sequence of events was frankly stunning.

The day after her date with Menendez, Nadine met up with Will Hanna.

He's an Egyptian-American businessman.

Times reporter Tracy Tully would later dig into Hanna's background.

He's kind of a serial entrepreneur, and he lost his...

house in Bayonne.

He's got no money.

Hanna and Nadine were good friends, part of what could be called a lonely hearts club.

They go from restaurant to restaurant.

On Tuesday, it was this restaurant.

On Wednesday, it was that restaurant.

And so that afternoon, after her first date with Menendez, they get together at one of their regular spots.

And within a couple of hours, while still with a friend, she texted the senator, What is your international position?

Nine minutes later, Menendez replies, I am the ranking member, which means senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Nadine's friend, Will Hanna, had been working on a new business idea.

He wanted to become a major exporter of halal meat from the U.S.

to Egypt.

The Egyptian government controls which companies certify their meat imports as halal, the rules that Muslims use to butcher meat.

It's like kosher, but it's halal.

Will Hanna was trying to get his halal certification business going.

It existed on paper, but it was making no money.

And then, enter,

Nadine.

A connection to a powerful U.S.

senator had fallen into Hanna's lap.

In just a few short weeks, he dangled his new friend in the Senate to contacts in the Egyptian government.

Hanna quickly figured out that they wanted help from Menendez with their military aid.

17 days after Nadine and Hanna met up to talk about her date, Nadine texts Hanna.

In case I can reach the senator, what was the title of the Egyptian man that we can meet in Washington?

He was an Egyptian general who is in charge of obtaining U.S.

military aid.

And before the short month of February was over, Nadine had arranged a meeting with the general and Menendez.

Hi, it's me calling my very handsome senator.

I have a thing to ask you.

Hopefully, you could do it, but

to start off with the general.

Since he has not met you before, he needs to have some kind of clearance from Egypt as to why he's meeting a U.S.

senator out of his embassy.

Is there any possible way that you can meet us at the embassy tomorrow, even if it's for 25 minutes?

Bob Menendez's political identity could always be traced back to growing up the son of Cuban immigrants, and he had a strong track record on human rights.

When he began dating Nadine, he'd been fighting for a decade to get the Senate to recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915.

Senator from New Jersey.

Thank you, Madam President.

We have just passed the Armenian Genocide resolution recognition, and it is fitting.

Nadine has a strong connection to this issue.

She says 13 members of her extended family were killed.

Hello, everyone.

This is Anna Kachikin from the Armenian Report.

I recorded an exclusive interview with a very special woman.

This is a podcast recorded in 2020.

It's a window into one aspect of Bob and Nadine's relationship, a shared passion.

Her name is Nadine Arslanian.

She is the fiancée of Senator Bob Menendez, who went up on the Senate floor over and over and over again until the U.S.

Senate recognized the Armenian genocide.

Yes, standing beside Senator Menendez was an Armenian woman championing him.

Please introduce yourself.

Who is Nadine?

Both my parents are Armenian.

I was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

And during the Civil War, we fled Lebanon to Greece, to London.

Nadine was a stay-at-home mom, raising her kids in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

And she liked a certain lifestyle.

She drove her kids to a private French school in Manhattan.

And she had been spotted with cast members of the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

By the time she met Bob Menendez, she was long divorced.

and by all accounts, they both fell hard and fast for each other.

I just wanted to hear your voice, and maybe if you got a break, give me a call.

I love you, Mona Mohda Lavi.

I can't wait for you to hold my hand and go to sleep.

20 months after they began dating, Bob took Nadine on a trip to the Taj Mahal.

With the massive white marble mausoleum as a backdrop, he launched into what he loves best, a serenade.

Then he pulled a ring out of his pocket and sat down on the bench next to her.

Oh my gosh!

You gotta look it up on YouTube.

The Cinderella-esque scene was a complete turnaround for Nadine.

Let's return to 2018 when they first began dating.

She had fallen on hard times, her divorce had left her close to bankruptcy, her house in Englewood Cliffs was in foreclosure, and after raising her two kids, she didn't have a career or work history.

In the texts sent two days after her first date with Menendez, She and a friend discussed the fact that this new connection could result in a good job.

So things were looking up.

But then, at the end of 2018, Nadine faced a new problem.

We'll come back to that after the break.

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In December 2018, Nadine was driving through the Bergen County town of Pagoda near its border with T-Neck.

It was 7.35 at night.

A surveillance camera recorded her Mercedes as she slammed into a pedestrian, a large man, who flew through the air like a ragdoll, hitting her windshield and landing on the pavement beside the curb.

Nadine stopped the car but stayed inside.

The surveillance video showed her in the car for a minute and 15 seconds while 49-year-old Richard Coop lay there, lifeless at the side of the road.

Then she slowly drives out of frame.

About two minutes later, a man runs up, directs traffic away from the lifeless body, and appears to call 911.

Dash Cam Video recorded a police interview with Nadine, who remained at the scene.

She's wearing a black cocktail dress and a light jacket, and she looks cold.

And that's your statement that you were driving this way, the guy came from this way, and he ran into your vehicle.

He jumped on my windshield.

Okay.

Okay.

Moments later, a retired cop arrives and introduces himself to the police.

How are we doing?

Good.

You're retired, he said?

Yes.

From where?

Hacking area.

Oh, okay.

All right.

That's Mike Mordaga, a former Bergen County detective.

He told the officers he'd been asked to come to the scene by a friend of Nadine's.

She's not under.

I don't even know.

I detected my buddy's wife about who's friends with her, and he said, Could you do me a favor and take her up there?

Because her friend just got in a car accident.

Gotcha.

so i don't even know um but yeah it's just an investigation but due to the nature of that that's no i got none of that i follow i fully follow you whatever you need you have my uh id

nadine wasn't tested for alcohol didn't turn over her phone and was never asked by the police why she waited so long in her car after hitting richard coop without calling 911 or offering aid Her attorney later told the New York Times that she was not at fault, did not violate any laws, and was therefore not charged with any crimes.

No citation was ever issued, and the only problem she faced was with her car.

Hi, Nadine.

This is Naraya giving you a call from Progressive.

Calling the trash base with you on your vehicle, it is things a total loss.

But Nadine didn't wait for an insurance settlement from Progressive.

She had a new friend through Wilhana, the halal meat guy.

Jose Uribe sells insurance, and he was facing legal trouble.

Will Hanna had known Uribe for about a decade.

Hanna had heard about his problems and told him he could introduce him to someone very powerful for a price.

Ultimately, Uribe purchased a new Mercedes convertible for Nadine.

Hi, Jose.

It's Nadine again.

So, but thank you very much.

I will go with Bob and look at the cards, cards, I guess, maybe Saturday.

Uribe was charged in the bribery case, pled guilty, and testified against the Menendezes in exchange for a lighter sentence.

He told the court that after he purchased the Mercedes for the couple, he finally got the meeting he had been asking for.

It was late in the evening, and Nadine arranged for him to drop by.

He sat down with the senator.

on the back patio.

He describes a moment where Menendez apparently, there's a bell sitting on the table and he tinkles the bell.

Tracy Tully is the Times reporter who covered the trial.

And she comes out from the house in response to his bell ringing and

he asked her to bring somebody asks her to bring a piece of paper out and she does this

and On it,

Jose writes down

the people that he's hoping to get favors for from those criminal charges.

Soon after, Menendez invited the state attorney general to come speak with him at his office about the Uribe case.

The former AG testified that he rebuffed the effort from Menendez to drop the investigation of Uribe's business partners.

Uribe's testimony about the patio meeting was a dramatic moment during the trial.

I wonder if the bell kind of became a symbol of

kind of like this imperious guy.

Like somehow it was like a window into

who Menendez is that he rang a little bell to summon her.

I think that's how it came across.

I think the most damning element of that was not so much that Menendez was imperious, to use your words.

Their whole defense was

she, his girlfriend and then wife, was doing things that he was unaware of.

She kept the gold, she kept much of the money in her locked bedroom closet.

He was unaware of this.

But what the bell to the jurors, I believe, probably sent the message was, you're trying to make the claim that she has so much agency that she's the mastermind of this scheme and she's working behind the senator's back.

Now, this is a very accomplished man.

He's reached the heights of power in DC, yet he's unaware of something going on in his own house.

But then, when you see the dynamic of their relationship, which is that he is summoning her with a bell, that I believe was like, whoa.

But the little bell and the brand new Mercedes are actually a fairly minor part of the case against Bob and Nadine Menendez.

The heart of it centers on the deal trading a halal meat monopoly for U.S.

military aid.

Before Nadine introduced Will Hanna to the senator, there were four companies that certified halal meat exports from the U.S.

to Egypt.

It's a huge market for the American beef industry.

For example, nearly 70% of the total beef liver supply from the U.S.

has been going to Egypt, more than 50,000 metric tons a year, just for beef liver.

And all meat imported to Egypt must be certified as halal.

So Hana, the up-till-now unsuccessful businessman, gets the contract replacing all the other companies, giving him a monopoly.

The money starts to roll in.

There's no exact figure that's been made public, but it's easily in the millions.

Around the same time, The texts and voicemails show a series of meetings that Senator Menendez holds with Egyptian officials, organized not by his staff, but by Nadine.

And ultimately, he releases the hold on the military aid.

To understand this part of the scheme, I called Josh Paul, who testified in the bribery trial.

Paul worked at the State Department for 12 years as a director in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs.

That is the part of the State Department that is responsible for America's defense diplomacy, as we call it, which includes U.S.

security assistance and arms transfers to countries around the world.

You must have dealt with several chairs of the Foreign Relations Committee.

What did you think of him as a chair?

I found,

so let me back up.

Interesting factoid.

I was actually living in New Jersey when I came of voting age.

And Senator Menendez was the very first, at the time, U.S.

member of the House for whom I voted.

That was back in 1996.

I know Paul doesn't sound like he's he's from New Jersey.

He spent some of his childhood in London.

Okay, back to Menendez.

In my experience and in a number of meetings with him, I found him to be very sharp, very intelligent, a deep understanding of the policies involved and the politics involved.

I did think that he could be a bit of a bully sometimes.

I thought your testimony was really interesting about sort of the power that the chair holds.

You know, and it's often just reduced to a little clause in a sentence in a news news article, like the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But so explain that power.

How much power did Menendez have as chair?

The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, if they communicate that they do not want an arms sale to go forward, essentially are the only voice in Congress, along with their counterpart on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who can stop it from happening.

And typically the State Department will respect that request not to move forward because if we ignore it, if we move forward despite a request from the chair of a committee not to move forward with a major arms sale, they can impose consequences.

Of course, the same committee that oversees arms sales is also responsible, for example, for confirming U.S.

ambassadors, confirming senior State Department officials.

And it would not be unheard of for an aggrieved chair of a committee to say we're not going to advance those nominations.

This brings us to the crux of the bribery scheme.

Egypt is the second largest recipient of American military aid in the world.

Menendez had placed a hold on some of that assistance because he and other senators said they were concerned about Egyptian human rights violations.

But then, in 2019, when he was not the chair, but the ranking member, the top Democrat on the committee, Menendez released the hold without discussing it with Josh Paul, the guy who coordinates these deals.

You don't know why a senator is placing a hold or lifting a hold unless their staff communicate the reason to you.

And in normal circumstances, there would be a reason.

And, you know, we would pass back questions of why is there a hold?

What can we do to get it lifted?

But no response.

And then suddenly, poof, the hold goes away.

And how unusual is that?

So again, that's pretty unusual.

Typically, when a senator places a hold or a House member places a hold on an arm sale, it is for a reason.

That reason is clear because the intent of placing the hold is to get us to address the underlying concerns that led to the hold in the first place.

Paul wasn't the only Washington official who thought Menendez was acting strangely.

Top people at the U.S.

Department of Agriculture tried to stop the Hawal meat monopoly going to Wilhana.

And staff who worked for Menendez were finding his handling of Egyptian relations, including Nadine's involvement in his official trip to Egypt, well, weird, according to texts they sent each other that were later introduced into court.

Someone seems to have convinced the FBI to take a look, because just as the whole scheme began to ramp up, unbeknownst to Bob and Nadine Menendez, it was also starting to unravel.

On the next episode of Dead End, the Rise and Fall of Gold Bar Bob Menendez, we'll look at how the Lovebirds got caught and what they're trying to do to get out of prison.

What do you think about the possibility that Donald Trump may pardon Menendez?

He has had a habit of pardoning people who have violated anti-corruption laws, whether they're white-collar crime anti-corruption laws or campaign finance laws.

I'm Nancy Solomon.

I made this series with Emily Botine and Jared Paul, our sound designer and music composer.

We had help from Alex Brady, Amber Bruce, Rex Stone, Katie Graham, David Krasnow, Mike Kuchman, Valentina Powers, and Jackson Vail.

Thanks for listening.