Sen. Bob Menendez’s (D-NJ) wife hit and killed a 49-year-old man while driving her Mercedes-Benz in Bogota, New Jersey on Dec. 12, 2018. According to an investigation report by the Bogota Police Department obtained by The New York Times, Nadine Arslanian Menendez was not charged in the incident. “Ms. Arslanian was not at fault in this crash,” the report said. “Mr. Koop was jaywalking and did not cross the street at an intersection or in a marked crosswalk.” It also mentioned that Arslanian had asked to speak with a lawyer because she didn’t “want to say anything wrong.” There was no documentation about whether she was asked about drinking or drugs, and no sobriety tests were conducted. A month later, court documents say Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman who is also charged in the bribery plot, about what happened to her car. Hana gifted her a 2019 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, according to documents from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Arslanian faces a federal indictment in a bribery scheme worth hundreds of thousands of dollars along with her husband, who is the subject of calls to resign.
