Dead End: WNYC podcast dives into the downfall of Gold Bar Bob Menendez

In the short month of February 2018, Bob Menendez and his future wife Nadine Menendez went from going on a first date to hatching an international bribery scheme, according to text messages and voicemails that federal prosecutors entered into evidence during their respective corruption and bribery trials.

The couple, who married in 2020, were both convicted on all the charges against them.

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Hear the voicemails

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On the latest episode of "Dead End," you can hear the voicemails between Bob and Nadine Menendez.

The messages demonstrate a burgeoning romance and a burgeoning scheme between Nadine Menendez and Bob Menendez — at the time the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to hold a back-channel meeting with an Egyptian general. And it began just 25 days after their first date.

“Hi, it's me, calling my very handsome senator. I have a favor to ask you. Hopefully you could do it,” Nadine said in a voicemail that was later entered into court evidence. “I just got 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 – the embassy.”

The former New Jersey senator reports to federal prison in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. He’ll be serving an 11-year sentence after he was convicted last year of bribery, extortion, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice. The case revolved around what prosecutors say was a three-way deal in which Menendez was accused of helping Egypt obtain military aid from the United States, the Egyptian government giving a lucrative halal meat contract to a New Jersey businessman, and that businessman paying bribes to Bob and Nadine Menendez.

He will be the first U.S. senator to go to prison in more than 40 years.

The federal prosecutors’ case depended heavily on 1,272 texts and voicemail messages sent between December 2017 and January 2022 that reveal how the deal came about.

In my new podcast by WNYC, "Dead End: The Rise and Fall of Gold Bar Bob Menendez," we tell a story of love and corruption that was surprising – even by New Jersey standards. The podcast unveils how quickly Bob Menendez fell for Nadine Menendez, and how quickly they devised a scheme that led to their ultimate convictions.

The scheme began on New Year’s Eve 2017, when Nadine Menendez, whose last name was Arslanian at the time, sent a text to Bob Menendez, according to the evidence.

A few months before, the senator avoided a conviction for bribery in a case related to gifts from a Florida eye doctor. The jury couldn’t decide whether or not to convict him and prosecutors decided not to retry the case, so Menendez was emerging from under the dark cloud that had hung over him since his indictment in 2015. He was also romantically free, because his former fiancée had left him at the beginning of the trial.

"In 4 1/2 hours it’s going to be your birthday," Nadine Menendez wrote in a text on New Year’s Eve. "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 59 minutes later: “Would love to get together but as I said once before I don’t want to interfere with your boyfriend.”

By the time of the next text, they appear to have resolved that issue. On Feb. 2, 2018, they went on a date to Acapella West, an upscale Italian restaurant in Edgewater. Nadine Menendez texted just before midnight, “Thank you for a great night.” Bob Menendez replied, “Glad your home safe. Enjoyed your company. We’ll have to do it again!”

The very next day, she met up with two friends at a restaurant, Wael “Will” Hana and Andy Aslanian, the texts show. Hana is an Egyptian American who was trying to start a company that would certify meat exports to Egypt as halal, but he hasn’t gotten any traction, according to business records filed with the state. Aslanian was a friend and mentor to Nadine Menendez. She had been with them for little more than an hour when she picked up her phone to text the senator.

“Do you know Albio Sires? What is your international position?” she asked her new beau. Sires was the Hudson County congressmember who took the seat held by Bob Menendez when he moved to the Senate after Sen. Frank Lautenberg's death in 2006.

Bob Menendez responded quickly to her text. “Yes I know him well. I am the ranking member, which means senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

Then the phone is passed off to Nadine Menendez’s friend. “Senator, I’m using Nadine‘s phone but I’m Andy Aslanian. Albio knows me very well. I was one of the attorneys for West New York when he was mayor. I am now the US attorney for the govt of Egypt‐ministry of defense and EPO office. in Washington DC .” EPO stands for the Egyptian Procurement Office, which handles obtaining military aid and weapons.

“Hello Andy. Based on your last name I guess your related? Would be happy to meet. Will arrange through Nadine. Thanks," Bob Menendez replied.

They are not related but it was an easy mistake to make, there’s a one-letter difference between Nadine Menendez’s previous last name and Andy’s last name. The lack of a familial connection didn’t seem to slow down the planning. The texts picked up 17 days later, when Nadine Menendez texts Hana.

“In case I can reach the senator, what was the title of the Egyptian man that we can meet in Washington,” she asked.

Hana emailed Nadine a news article about Bob Menendez and other senators urging the White House to press the Egyptian president on human rights. Hana also texts Khaled Shawky, the Egyptian general, the website showing that Menendez is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On Feb. 26, 2018, Hana texted Nadine Menendez, “what u up to.” She replied, “Dealing with the basement flood. I can’t believe my luck... the car , the gutters now the basement. When will my luck change?”

And Hana wrote back, “tomorrow”, to which Nadine Menendez replied, “You can make anything happen. I do believe that”.

They talked on the phone that day, and two hours later, Nadine Menendez left the voicemail for her “handsome senator” about whether he was willing to meet the Egyptian general. “I think I would really want you to meet him and I think it would be good for the relationship between Egypt and the United States, among other things, and I know you only have an hour,” she said on the recording.

Then her voice turned a little sultry. “Is there any possible way you can meet us at the embassy tomorrow, even if it’s for 25 minutes? You’ll make an introduction with the general and after that you can meet or talk or do whatever, but the introduction is done and then we don’t need an explanation to Egypt as to why he’s meeting an official not at the embassy.”

From this point on, many meetings are held between Menendez, Hana and members of Egyptian intelligence.

A year later, Egypt gave Hana a monopoly on certifying halal meat into their country. Menendez signed off on military aid to Egypt, according to testimony and evidence introduced at the trial. Prosecutors introduced evidence and testimony to show Hana and two other New Jersey businessmen began paying the senator and his girlfriend in the form of cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible.