In white-collar criminal enforcement, attention has shifted in recent years from insider trading to high-profile cases of alleged public corruption. The U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York have prosecuted a number of New York State legislators, although two of the most significant convictions—of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos—were overturned on appeal, as we discussed in a recent article, Elkan Abramowitz and Jonathan Sack, “Limits on the Scope of Honest Services Fraud,” N.Y.L.J. (Nov. 7, 2017). A Southern District jury recently reached a mixed verdict in the prosecution of Joseph Percoco (a former senior New York state executive branch staff member) and three others, finding Percoco guilty on three counts (and acquitting him on three others), deadlocking on Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., convicting Steven Aiello on one count (and acquitting him on two others), and acquitting Joseph Gerardi. As this article goes to press, the trial of former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano, his wife and former Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto has begun in the Eastern District.

In this article, we discuss the prosecution of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez and co-defendant Dr. Salomon Melgen, who were charged in the District of New Jersey with bribery, honest services fraud and related offenses. Senator Menendez was also charged with making false statements on federal financial disclosure forms. The prosecution resulted in a hung jury and mistrial in late 2017. After the district court, Senior District Judge William H. Walls, granted defense motions for acquittal as to seven of 18 counts in the indictment, United States v. Menendez, 2018 WL 526746 (D. N.J. Jan. 24, 2018), the government announced that it would dismiss the remaining counts and not try the defendants again, apparently concluding that the partial dismissal had severely weakened the government’s case on the surviving counts.

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