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Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to bribery charges, standing before a magistrate judge in Manhattan federal court, his voice steady and his wife, Nadine, seated nearby.
About three hours earlier, the Menendezes held hands as they pushed through a crowd of journalists and entered the courthouse without answering questions. A lone protester shouted “Resign!”
Ms. Menendez, 56, also entered a not-guilty plea for her role in the bribery conspiracy, which prosecutors said involved weapons sales and aid to the government of Egypt. In a 39-page indictment unsealed last week, they also described efforts by Mr. Menendez, a powerful Democrat, to strong arm prosecutors in New Jersey in an attempt to influence criminal investigations.
In exchange, prosecutors said, the couple accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars, bars of gold bullion and a Mercedes-Benz convertible — bribes given by three New Jersey businessmen who were also charged in the yearslong corruption scheme.
Mr. Menendez was released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond by the judge, Ona T. Wang. Ms. Menendez was released on a $250,000 bond, secured by their residence in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
The judge said foreign travel by Mr. Menendez would be allowed, but only for official business and with prior notification to the court.
One of the businessmen charged in the scheme, Wael Hana, an American citizen born in Egypt, was arrested Tuesday morning at Kennedy International Airport after he voluntarily flew to the United States from Egypt to face the charges, his lawyer said. He pleaded not guilty hours later, surrendered his passport and was granted release on a $5 million personal recognizance bond.
The two other businessmen charged with bribery, Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer, and Jose Uribe, who works in the trucking industry, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday along with the Menendezes.
The conspiracy as alleged by prosecutors was far-reaching and depicted a web of corruption that even one of the senator’s closest allies, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, called shocking and disturbing.
Mr. Menendez, 69, has said in recent days that he was confident he would be exonerated once the facts were fully presented, and he has cautioned against a rush to judgment. He has rejected calls from a growing number of top Democrats, including Gov. Philip D. Murphy and Mr. Booker, to step down.
The scheme involved payments by Mr. Hana, Mr. Daibes and Mr. Uribe to Mr. Menendez and his wife in exchange for the senator’s efforts to direct federal aid and weapons sales to Egypt, according to the indictment.
The plot also benefited Mr. Hana’s halal meat business, prosecutors said, which eventually won a contract to be the sole entity worldwide permitted by Egypt to certify that imported food products had been prepared according to Islamic law. Mr. Hana used his company, according to the indictment, to funnel bribes to the Menendezes.
The New Jersey-based company, IS EG Halal, reported little to no income until April 2019, when the Egyptian government gave it exclusive rights to certify meat coming from the United States, even though Mr. Hana had no experience in the industry, state and federal records show. Until then, four companies had divided the work.
“Seems like halal went through,” Ms. Menendez said in a text to the senator, the indictment said. “It might be a fantastic 2019 all the way around.”
When a high-level U.S. Department of Agriculture official publicly objected to the monopoly, concerned that it could increase the cost of food in Egypt and disrupt U.S. markets, Mr. Menendez tried to silence the official, the indictment said.
Mr. Menendez is also accused of intervening in criminal investigations involving people tied to the Egyptian scheme.
Investigators found $550,000 in cash, 13 bars of gold bullion and the Mercedes during a June 2022 search of a safe deposit box in Ms. Menendez’s name and the couple’s home.
The charges came after a lengthy investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. Much of the alleged activity occurred in New Jersey. But prosecutors noted that parts of the conspiracy, including a dinner meeting and sales of gold in Manhattan, and the use of a bank account first opened in the Bronx, took place within the Southern District’s jurisdiction.
“My office is firmly committed to rooting out corruption, without fear or favor, and without any regard to partisan politics,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District, said in a statement. “We will continue to do so.”
Mr. Daibes and Mr. Uribe were also released Wednesday with restrictions. All five defendants are expected to return Monday for a hearing before Judge Sidney H. Stein. It will be held in the Lower Manhattan courthouse named for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democratic titan who was New York’s senior senator when Mr. Menendez first arrived in Congress in 1993.
Mr. Menendez was charged in 2015 with similar, but unrelated, corrupt acts by federal prosecutors in New Jersey. His trial in Newark lasted nine weeks, but the jury could not reach a unanimous decision. In January 2018, the Justice Department declined to retry him after a judge dismissed the most serious charges.
Prosecutors say the corruption scheme laid out in the new indictment began the following month.
Michael D. Regan and Wesley Parnell contributed reporting.
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