Senator Menendez Plans To Appeal His Guilty Verdict- Does He Have A Chance?

The much-anticipated trial of New Jersey US Senator Bob Menendez quietly came to its conclusion Tuesday, as the senator was found guilty on all 16 charges of bribery and influence peddling. Still defiant to the end, however, Menendez maintains his innocence and is vowing to appeal.

Does he actually have a case, and if so, how likely is he to win in appeal? Jesse Weber is the anchor on the Law and Crime Network and host of Always in Fashion, heard Saturdays and Sundays at 7pm on WOR. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to say the odds of Menendez getting a court to overturn the conviction on appeal are practically impossible.

“This is one of the most egregious cases of corruption I have seen in quite some time,” Weber told Berman and Riedel. “I mean, the defense attorneys in their closing arguments said, ‘Jury, don’t be persuaded by these salacious details laid out by prosecutors,’ but guys- these were salacious details! Gold bars, cash stuffed, a Mercedes, a little bell that he rang to get his wife to come over to contribute to these bribe schemes. I mean, this stuff, you couldn’t even make it up!”

Weber thinks Menendez wants to create “debate privilege” on appeal to get the verdict tossed, but the strategy is a Hail Mary, at best. “During the course of this case, there was at least one time that the judge sided with the defense [and] excluded evidence that prosecutors wanted to get in… that there were certain pieces of evidence that a jury shouldn’t have seen. These were conversations he had regarding legislation. He has a right to shield those from a jury; otherwise, it would create a chilling effect for those in Congress to have those conversations because they will be prosecuted. Having said that, I think there was still a lot more evidence other than those communications where you could find him guilty of this.”

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