The judge presiding over the bribery trial of Sen. Bob Menendez has indefinitely postponed the trial of the New Jersey Democrat’s wife, Nadine Menendez, a co-defendant in the case who is undergoing cancer treatments, court records showed Tuesday.
“The trial in this case is adjourned sine die,” U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein wrote in a brief ruling he signed Monday, using a Latin legal term meaning “without a date.”
Nadine Menendez’s attorney, Barry Coburn, declined to comment on the delay in her trial. She was charged along with her husband in a lawsuit filed last year alleging they exchanged political favors for hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars and cash from three New Jersey businessmen, but her trial was postponed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
After a judge ordered an indefinite delay in her trial, a jury returned a verdict against the senator Tuesday afternoon, finding him guilty on all counts in the case. He faces sentencing in October.
Menendez released a statement about his wife’s condition in May, saying, “Nadine is suffering from grade 3 breast cancer, for which she will require a mastectomy. We are of course concerned about the severity and advanced stage of the disease.”
His attorneys, Adam Fee and Avi Weitzman, said in a statement Tuesday that his “top priority is his wife’s health, and we are pleased that she will have the time she needs to focus on treatment and recovery.”
Nadine Menendez’s attorney wrote in a court document in June that she “has medical devices implanted in her body and is experiencing severe, chronic pain.”
He then added: “We ask the press and public to please allow her the time, space and privacy to deal with this challenging health condition as she undergoes surgery and recovers.”
The trial of her husband and two other co-defendants began in May, and the jury began deliberations in the case on Friday. The man and woman, who began dating in 2018 and married in 2020, both pleaded not guilty.