Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife, indicted alongside him last month in a sprawling corruption case, was on the payroll of a medical lab that drew down more than $10 million in federal COVID-19 funding—a company, like the firms at the center of the federal charges, with ties to Egypt.
Nadine Arslanian Menendez faces allegations that she received bribe payments from multiple New Jersey businessmen to influence her husband on behalf of the regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, among other crimes. The Justice Department alleges that some illicit payments flowed to Strategic International Business Consultants, a limited liability company she reportedly established for this purpose.
But on his 2021 and 2022 personal financial disclosures, the New Jersey Democrat reported his bride had two sources of income—not only Strategic International Business Consultants, but also Fusion Diagnostics Laboratories, an entity in the Garden State. The reports show her arrangement with this medical testing facility started some time after her October 2020 marriage to the senator—but coincided with the period in which the company sucked in massive sums the federal government allocated to deal with the pandemic.
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The federal indictment does not mention the Fusion job, and as of this writing prosecutors have not alleged any wrongdoing at the lab. But like the schemes described in the criminal complaint, the situation involves a strange tangle of local, national, and international intrigues and interests.
New Jersey sources told The Daily Beast that Fusion accessed at least some of the federal monies thanks to testing programs local authorities coordinated in Hudson County, Menendez’s political home base. What’s more, the personal Facebook page of Fusion CEO and co-owner Moataz Abdalla reveals him to be an ardent and abiding supporter of Sisi’s government—while the company’s LinkedIn reveals that a substantial portion of its staff is based in his home city of Alexandria, Egypt’s ancient port on the Mediterranean. Business filings further show that one of Abdalla’s former co-owners in Fusion is a New Jersey anesthesiologist trained at the Alexandria Faculty of Medicine and who has a relationship with a Cairo hospital.
Menendez’s disclosures do not provide his wife’s title at Fusion, the start or end dates of her employment, or an exact figure for her compensation, but show only that the firm paid her a salary exceeding $1,000. Representatives for the couple did not respond to repeated queries from The Daily Beast regarding these details, or about how she learned of the position’s availability, what kind of application and interview process she went through, or what specific projects and responsibilities she handled there.
Arslanian Menendez’s only prior experience in the medical sector The Daily Beast could confirm was as an unpaid volunteer on the children’s health advisory committee of a New Jersey hospital.
Reached by The Daily Beast via text message, Abdalla would not answer these questions, nor inquiries as to where he publicly posted the job opening, how many candidates he considered for the role, or whether he or any of his associates had at any point been in touch with federal law enforcement. The businessman, who told the Wall Street Journal prior to the indictment that Arslanian Menendez had worked in “sales and marketing,” would only respond with blanket denials of wrongdoing.
“I believe you are barking up the wrong tree which is why there is no even accusations [sic] against [F]usion or myself, and there never will be,” Abdalla, who did not respond to calls or emails, wrote.
Abdalla would not even answer if Arslanian Menendez’s job was one of the 28 positions he reported preserving with an eventually forgiven $290,112 Paycheck Protection Program loan Fusion received in February 2021.
The purpose of the PPP initiative was to prevent mass layoffs at companies compelled to close their doors amid COVID-19 lockdowns and the resulting economic slump. But public records and news reports show that at the time of receiving its loan, Fusion was both adding staff—as in the case of Arslanian Menendez—and building out a testing operation for the novel coronavirus, first in Jersey City, then Hoboken and Bayonne, three of the largest municipalities in Hudson County.
Records indicate that this expansion began in late Nov. 2020, predating by a few months both the loan and Arslanian Menendez’s reported period of employment. Sources in Bayonne told The Daily Beast that Jersey City health authorities had referred Fusion to them, but Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s office insisted that “no recommendations were made under the city’s directive.”
Fulop’s team refused to provide details about how the city came to work with Fusion, and insisted only that the company never had any formal financial relationship with Jersey City’s local Department of Health and Human Services.
“Fusion offered free testing at no cost to the city,” press secretary Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione wrote in an email. “Once HHS verified they were a legitimate operation, no contract was needed as the city paid nothing and HHS did not provide any oversight.”
In Hoboken, Fusion operated under the auspices of another firm, Bespoke Health. Bespoke and its president did not respond to calls or emails from The Daily Beast requesting information about its dealings with Fusion.
Hudson County sources told The Daily Beast that they believed Fusion primarily received payment via a federal relief fund established under the CARES Act—and a database operated by the labor-backed nonprofit Good Jobs First reports that by July 2021, Fusion had drawn down $3.6 million in such reimbursements.
By the time the federal relief fund expired at the close of March 2022, a period that overlapped with Arslanian Menendez’s tenure at the lab, that figure had ballooned to nearly $10 million.
But while Fusion hoovered up federal cash, it left New Jersey residents frustrated and even infuriated with its work. The lab’s failure to turn around results in a reasonable period generated such a scandal in Hoboken in late 2021 that the city abruptly shuttered one of its test sites, and Bespoke Health announced it would switch to a different testing facility.
The Daily Beast also obtained multiple complaints dating to early 2022 from residents in Jersey City, who reported waiting a week or more for test results from Fusion that the city’s webpage had promised would arrive in just 24 hours.
These almost exactly match complaints about Fusion a year earlier out of Bayonne.
“Although many people were tested, there were issues concerning test result notifications, entering data in the state system in a timely manner, and other concerns,” former Bayonne Assemblyman Nick Chiaravalloti, who helped set up the city’s first free test site with Fusion, wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast.
Similar gripes litter the “Reviews” section of the company’s Facebook page.
“Ridiculously unresponsive. Still waiting on results for a PCR COVID test from 9 days ago,” wrote one resident of Union City, Menendez’s hometown in Hudson County.
“The biggest issue, is the Government wants you to get tested, you go expend over 2 hours to get tested, and later no results,” wrote another Union City user. “I am sure they are billing and getting well pay [sic], without completing their job in the timely matter.”
Curiously, most of the positive reviews left on Fusion’s Facebook have come from accounts belonging to individuals based in Egypt.
Abdalla, the Fusion co-owner and CEO, did not respond to a text request for comment on the complaints. Both he and representatives for the Menendezes refused to answer repeated queries about whether the power couple had ever contacted any municipal or federal authority on Fusion’s behalf, as the senator allegedly did repeatedly for the three businessmen accused of bribing him.
No official or individual from Hudson County with whom The Daily Beast spoke for this piece reported ever speaking with the Menendezes, or with any of the senator’s staffers or advisers, about Fusion, and several expressed shock when informed of Arslanian Menendez’s employment there. Others voiced no surprise at all, but still pleaded ignorance about the arrangement.
However, Fusion definitely pulled at least some local political strings to secure its test sites, The Daily Beast can report. Multiple sources recalled that Khemraj “Chico” Ramchal, a disgraced former Jersey City councilman aligned with Mayor Fulop, helped the lab obtain space and municipal support. Ramchal confirmed this in an interview with The Daily Beast, and said he had even coordinated directly with Jersey City Health and Human Services Director Stacey Flanagan.
But despite describing Abdalla as “like family,” Ramchal—forced from office in 2016 after pleading guilty to drunk driving and accepting a no-show job—insisted to The Daily Beast that he was oblivious to Arslanian Menendez’s presence on Fusion’s payroll. He also denied having any line to the accused duo himself.
“Hell no! I don’t even have a connection with Menendez,” Ramchal maintained. “That’s big league for me, man. I’m a little city guy.”
Ramchal additionally asserted he had nothing to do with arranging any Fusion test sites outside of Jersey City, and claimed to have no idea how they got them.
Questioned about his relationship with Ramchal, Abdalla again refused to answer questions directly.
“As I have mentioned previously, if there were even the slightest allegation against me or my company, it would have posed a significant issue,” Abdalla wrote. “However, since there is no suspicious activity, and I haven’t been accused, I kindly request that you focus your attention on the individuals who have been indicted by the government, rather than continuously targeting Fusion.”
“Alternatively, if you choose to disregard the concept of karma, that is entirely up to you,” he added.
