Senator Bob Menendez, who was convicted on 16 felony charges last month related to accepting bribes, ended his long-shot race for reelection as an independent on Friday.
After his conviction last month, Menendez, a three-term senator from New Jersey, announced that he would step down from his Senate seat on August 20. While he did not run in the Democratic primary in June, but had collected well above the number of signatures needed to get onto the ballot as an independent in November.
Shortly before the deadline to remove his name from the ballot on Friday, Menendez sent a one-sentence email to the New Jersey Division of Elections asking to withdraw from the ballot.
Last month, a New York jury convicted Menendez on charges including obstruction of justice, acting as a foreign agent, bribery, extortion and honest services wire fraud.
Over the course of a two-month trial, prosecutors accused the senator and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, of accepting bribes — including hundreds of thousands of dollars, gold bars, and a Mercedes-Benz convertible — from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for help with a number of legal issues. Menendez was also accused of accepting bribes to work as a foreign agent on behalf of Qatar and Egypt while he served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The trial, which lasted two weeks longer than expected, featured testimony from some 37 witnesses. Menendez did not testify on his own behalf.
Assistant U.S. attorney Paul Monteleoni argued evidence overwhelmingly proved Menendez was an active part of the bribery scheme; the senator allegedly made phone calls, wrote letters and met with both Egyptian intelligence officials and the New Jersey businessmen himself.
While Menendez’s defense team argued that it was his wife who was behind the bribery scheme, Monteleoni said it was the senator who was calling the shots and using his wife as an intermediary.
Menendez has $3.3 million in campaign funds that he can continue to use to pay for his and his wife’s legal defense, as he seeks an appeal and she gets ready to stand trial as soon as this month. Her attorneys lobbied to have her trial separated from her husbands because her diagnosis of Stage 3 breast cancer would have made it difficult to stand trial alongside the senator.
On Friday, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy announced that his former chief-of-staff, George Helmy, would serve in Menendez’s place until the November 5 election. The winner of the election will then be appointed to serve in the Senate immediately, two months before the winning candidate’s term would traditionally begin.
The race to replace Menendez is between Republican Curtis Bashaw and Democratic Representative Andy Kim.