Jury Deadlocked in Democrat Sen. Menendez Corruption Case, Deliberations to Continue
“Go home and have a good meal and have a good sleep”
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez is on trial for bribery, honest services fraud, and conspiracy. Menendez is accused of using his Senate office to proffer favors for big-moneyed campaign donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen.
The trial came to a halt Monday with the jury deadlocked on all 12 federal charges.
From NJ.com:
U.S. District Judge William Walls sent them home early and told them to try again on Tuesday.
“Go home and have a good meal and have a good sleep,” Walls told the jury.
The jury foreman sent the judge a note around 2 p.m. saying the group could not reach a verdict on any of the counts.
“Is there any additional guidance and what do we do now?” the foreman asked the judge in his note.
The note was sent out just hours after an alternate juror joined the group to replace one who was excused last Thursday for vacation. That departing juror, Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby, told reporters that jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict on any of the bribery counts against the New Jersey Democrat or his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen.
The defense argued this was cause enough to declare a mistrial, but the presiding judge ordered jurors to go home early and return Tuesday to continue deliberations (NJ.com ctd):
Menendez’s attorney argued for the judge to declare an immediate mistrial. Prosecutors argued the jury had only begun its deliberations anew three hours earlier when an alternate juror was put on the panel and needed more time to deliberate.
“I think it would be appropriate that they continue their deliberations,” Walls said.
The jurors were advised to “start fresh” Monday after Juror Number 8 left for vacation, leaving a spot to fill. That juror then spoke with CNN, predicting a hung juror. From CNN:
Their 16 hours of deliberations — which spilled into rare public view last week — continued from scratch Monday morning with an alternate juror replacing one who was excused due to vacation plans.
“You are starting fresh,” Walls told the jury. “Forget about what happened last week. This is the jury.”In an unusual tell-all to CNN and other news outlets last week, Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby, formerly juror No. 8, revealed the divisions among jurors over the multi-count indictment Menendez is facing and suggested “it’s going to be a hung jury.”
“(Prosecutors) just didn’t show me enough, and I just wish I wasn’t going on vacation,” Arroyo-Maultsby said. “I would’ve been fighting in that jury room.”
Headed into court Monday, Menendez told reporters that he “wished she hadn’t left.”
“I wish her a great vacation, I wish she hadn’t left, but I hope that no juror in the jury room feels bullied by another juror,” Menendez said. “I’m concerned about some of the comments she made … the environment in the jury room.”
Over the objection of the prosecution, Walls questioned jurors about whether they heard or read Arroyo-Maultsby’s comments to the press. Four jurors and, later, three alternates slowly raised their hands, but ultimately none were dismissed after further questioning behind closed doors with the judge and attorneys.
Menendez’s defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, urged Walls to engage in a more expansive inquiry regarding reports Arroyo-Maultsby wanted to contact the judge about deliberations last week and felt certain jurors were trying to “run out the clock” on her, knowing she had to leave on a pre-scheduled vacation.
“That’s life that they ran the clock out on her,” Walls told attorneys, unpersuaded that any harm was done. “She never had the votes.”
A sitting U.S. Senator on trial for bribery and corruption hasn’t caught the attention of major news outlets, who haven’t bothered to cover the story.
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Comments
I eagerly await the GOP pieces of shit grandstanding and making public announcements about how they need to remove Menendez from office like Moore.
now, now, we mustn’t prejudge –
UNLESS OF COURSE, IF IT’S A TRUE CONSERVATIVE!
You have a long wait.
Knowing the guy and coming from that county in NJ, that’s exactly what he was…a POS. This was far from his only shady deal but as a Democratic state, they never went after him.
Stand up again him, hell! Lindsey Graham went to the trial and testified on his behalf as a character witness.
His fellow Dems and Repubs in the Cocktail Party are doing all they can to keep him out of prison.
I love how the accusations here don’t get the GOPe angry enough to tell Menendez to step down
The GOP just wishes that they could be as openly corrupt as the Democrats and not get caught.
not get REPORTED, is the operative term.
So … did that lowest-common-denominator juror ever find out what a “senator” is?
Half the Senators likely don’t know.
We’re still trying to figure out what kind of senator McConnell is.
Somehow I sincerely doubt this is eleven jurors wanting to declare him innocent, and one rednecked conservative going for guilty. More like eleven people looking at the pile of poo and wanting to hit flush, and one person who is convinced they’re “Sticking it to Trump” by setting this pile of poo free.
I doubt it’s 11-1 in either direction, but I think a majority is probably for acquittal. Without having heard all the evidence I can’t say how I’d have voted, but on general principles I’m very skeptical of such charges because prosecutors have a nasty habit of going overboard with them, and trying to criminalize behavior that isn’t against the law. We saw it with Arthur Anderson, Conrad Black, Ted Stevens, Bob McDonnell, Tom DeLay, Scott Walker, etc. In most of these cases there was no dispute about what happened, but prosecutors were making up the law.
@georgefellis
Could be a cultural thing. I have friends from Puerto Rico and Dominican republic and they have a totally different conception of how government works. What we call corruption is to them is the normal operation of government, it’s what they’re are used to. They’ll see Menendez as one of theirs, and assume that everyone else is doing exactly the same thing for their constituents. One of them told me Jimmy Carter was on the take. Yeah he was one of the worst US presidents ever but there is no evidence he ever took a dime.
That would explain much of the split between the Moore hubbub and this. To the sitting Senators, Menendez just got caught doing what they do at various levels of intensity every day, while Moore is catching two different ‘flavors’ of hate. First, is from the establishment Dems and Republicans who see a lever they can use to get rid of him because he’s a threat. Second is from the other senators who see an opportunity to virtue-signal their own high moral values (ugh!).
Our government is the most corrupt it’s ever been.
We should chip-in for a booster rocket so North Korea can reach D.C. – while Trump is out of town.
I’m wondering why the claims of underage sex with sex trafficked girls hasn’t sparked off the feminazis?
Why it’s ALMOST as if there are different rules for the swamp eh?
My prediction is he will be found not guilty. It’s just fat too suspicious for the Senate to not get all preachy on him being removed and them being utterly silent about it.
Why wasn’t the departing juror cautioned not to talk to anyone about the deliberations? This seems like grounds for a mistrial.
She was an obvious Menendez supporter and that appeared to be her intent for making the public comments.
They didn’t actually think they could convict a sitting democrat senator in New Jersey, did they? The state whose court unanimously and effectively dug up Frank Lautenberg’s body to run against the all but guaranteed republican victor when Robert Torricelli had to back out of the race at the last moment? That state?!
On a procedural note, it seems that the judge may be delivering an Allen charge (or dynamite charge) to the jury in the near future.
Isn’t this the guy who fepeatedly and recently went to the DR to hook up with underage prostitutes with his “friend,” the doctor? He is accused of corruption and is on trial, but the MSM only has time to spend on 40 year old allegations about Roy Moore. Every elected official of boht parties is asked if Moore should resign or step down, but nobody has to answer that about Sen. Menendez. Why is that?