Judge denies request to move Menendez trial

NEWARK – The trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and the wealthy Florida eye doctor accused of bribing him will remain in New Jersey, where the state’s citizens will be better served by the opportunity to attend and receive news coverage of it, a judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge William H. Walls denied a request made by attorneys for Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, and Dr. Salomon Melgen to move their trial to Washington, D.C.

“The defendant owns a very, very important statewide office,” Walls said of Menendez, who was not in court.

“It is then fitting that the trial of an elected official ... be held before his peers, the impartial citizens of his state who will form the jury,” the judge said.

If the trial is held in New Jersey, its citizens will benefit from the opportunity to attend it and to receive frequent news reports of it, Walls said.

“This case will certainly not be better off in the District of Columbia,” Walls said.

Menendez’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, on Tuesday morning urged Walls to move the federal corruption trial to Washington, arguing that is where “the nerve center or the center of gravity” of the case is located.

But an attorney for the government insisted that Menendez and Melgen should be tried in New Jersey, saying that is where the alleged bribery at the heart of the case took place.

Menendez and Melgen, both 61, were charged in April in a 68-page, 14-count indictment alleging that Melgen showered about $1 million in lavish gifts upon Menendez in exchange for the senator’s influence for his benefit. The alleged gifts included campaign donations, flights aboard a private plane from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to use of Melgen’s luxury vacation villa in the Dominican Republic, and a stay at a suite in a Paris hotel.

Menendez repeatedly has said his relationship with Melgen is nothing more than friendship.

Peter Koski, deputy chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, argued to Walls that the trial should take place where the alleged bribes occurred.

“We can’t try this case in a foreign country or at 7,000 feet,” Koski said.

“New Jersey is the only state where this case should be tried,” he said, noting that many of Menendez’s trips originated with flights from the Garden State.

But Lowell listed a number of other factors he said should weigh in favor of transferring the trial to Washington, among them that Menendez is in the nation’s capital Monday through Friday on any given week and that the majority of the government’s witnesses are there.

Lowell said the government prosecutors are also based in Washington, as are many of the attorneys who are on the defense team.

Keeping the trial in New Jersey would incur transportation and lodging costs for witnesses and prosecutors that would be borne by taxpayers, Lowell said.

“It’s an unnecessary burden on the taxpayers to expense this case when it didn’t have to be so,” Lowell said.

“The nerve center or the center of gravity of this case is in Washington, D.C.,” Lowell argued.

Walls said the cost to taxpayers had some bearing, but it wasn’t so great that it required transferring the trial to Washington. The judge said travel between the nation’s capital and Newark is quick and inexpensive, and the defense provided nothing to show that witnesses would be testifying multiple days, requiring hotel stays. He noted the distance between Washington is a little over 200 miles and about an hour’s travel time by air.

“It is not clear the government would save a substantial sum by bringing the case in Washington,” Wall said.

More importantly, the judge said it appeared based on the court dockets in New Jersey and the District of Columbia that the trial could proceed on a more timely basis in Newark. Walls said he is ready to proceed with the trial on Oct. 13.

The defendants’ attorneys “ignore the reality that this court is ready to conduct the trial as quickly as possible,” Walls said.

Melgen also was not in court Tuesday. His attorney, Kirk Ogrosky, argued that many of the flights at the center of the case originated in Florida, where his client resides.

Melgen remains incarcerated in Florida following a separate, 75-count indictment charging him in April with attempting to bilk Medicaid of as much as $190 million.