Jose Uribe, a former New Jersey insurance broker charged in what prosecutors have described as a broad bribery scheme involving Senator Robert Menendez, pleaded guilty on Friday in Manhattan.
Mr. Uribe had been accused of providing Nadine Menendez, the senator’s wife, with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Mr. Menendez’s efforts to intercede in an insurance fraud investigation in New Jersey.
As part of his guilty plea, Mr. Uribe also agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors in their investigation, according to a formal plea agreement signed by Mr. Uribe, his lawyer and prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York….
The car, according to prosecutors, was one of the first bribes provided for the benefit of the senator and Ms. Menendez during a yearslong conspiracy. They have also been accused in three successive indictments with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars and bars of gold bullion in exchange for the senator’s willingness to provide political favors and to help the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
The Mercedes replaced a vehicle that police records show Ms. Menendez was driving in December 2018 when she struck and killed a pedestrian, Richard Koop, in Bogota, N.J. Ms. Menendez, who married Mr. Menendez in 2020, was dating the senator at the time of the crash.
She was not tested for drugs or alcohol and was not charged with wrongdoing.