Turning the Tables, Robert Menendez’s Wife Now Seeks to Blame Him

During his trial on federal corruption charges, Robert Menendez, the former senator from New Jersey, tried unsuccessfully to blame much of his trouble on his wife, Nadine.

But as she seeks to avoid a lengthy prison sentence of her own, Ms. Menendez and her lawyers are now taking a swipe at her husband and his defense strategy as she presents herself as a gullible wife scarred from a series of abusive romantic relationships.

Ms. Menendez, 58, was a “convenient scapegoat” for her husband and the men convicted of bribing him, her lawyers wrote in a sentencing memo filed on Friday.

In the memo, they cite Ms. Menendez’s childhood in wartime Lebanon and her breast cancer diagnosis as they argue that a penalty of one year and one day would be an appropriate punishment when she is sentenced next month for taking bribes in exchange for arranging political favors from her powerful husband.

It’s a sentiment that Mr. Menendez, 71, now appears to share.

In a letter of support for his wife, written from a Pennsylvania penitentiary where he is serving an 11-year term, Mr. Menendez expressed regret for permitting his lawyers to depict his wife as desperate, broke and on the take.

“I regret that I didn’t fully preview what my defense attorney said about Nadine during my trial and in his summation,” Mr. Menendez wrote. “To suggest that Nadine was money hungry or in financial need, and therefore would solicit others for help, is simply wrong.”

At trial, Mr. Menendez’s lawyer, Avi Weitzman, told jurors that the former senator had been dazzled by Ms. Menendez, whom he married in 2020. He said she had kept Mr. Menendez in the dark about “what she was asking others to give her.”

“She tried to get cash and assets any which way she could,” Mr. Weitzman said at the start of Mr. Menendez’s trial last year in Manhattan federal court.

His wife’s lawyers, in the court filing, did not miss the chance to throw a bit of shade on Mr. Menendez.

“While it is much too late, Senator Menendez has now explained to the court that, ‘Nadine is not the person who prosecutors, or for that fact, what the defense attorneys made her out to be,’” the lawyers, Sarah Krissoff, Catherine Yun and Andrew Vazquez, wrote.

In his letter, Mr. Menendez embraces a theme common to nearly all 20 letters filed Friday in support of Ms. Menendez: She was easily manipulated after a lifetime of trauma.

“She was often taken advantage of,” her husband wrote. “Even with the best intentions, sometimes you just have to say no. She found that hard to do.”

Her son, daughter, sister and lawyers agreed.

“She doesn’t have the ability to really think about the intentions or motives of the people around her,” her adult son, André, wrote. “My whole life I watched as her friends and boyfriends would take advantage of her and abuse her.

“I can’t even describe the frustration I have that she continues to spend time around the wrong people.”

Ms. Menendez was convicted in April of participating in a sprawling, yearslong bribery conspiracy with her husband. The couple were found guilty of trading Mr. Menendez’s political influence in New Jersey and Washington for gold, cash and a Mercedes-Benz convertible in a scheme that involved the governments of Egypt and Qatar and a halal meat certification monopoly.

Ms. Menendez’s daughter, Sabine, asked the judge, Sidney H. Stein, to consider whether her mother had the savvy to orchestrate such a complicated bribery plot.

“How does a middle-aged woman with little to no prior work experience get convicted of fraud, obstruction of justice and bribery?” her daughter wrote. “Would you have hired her to do the job? Would it be outrageous to say that of the group, she’s the least qualified to have been the ‘mastermind behind the scenes’?”

Katia Tabourian, Ms. Menendez’s sister, who testified at both corruption trials, said Ms. Menendez “struggled with independence” and was easily fooled.

“She has always relied heavily on our parents — especially our mother — for guidance on even the most basic life choices: where to study, whom to marry, even what to order at a restaurant,” Ms. Tabourian wrote.

She said their mother’s death had left her sister “susceptible to influence and direction from others” — particularly from a former boyfriend, who she said was abusive, and Ms. Menendez’s “current husband.”

Many of the letters of support, including two filed by her hairdressers, describe Ms. Menendez’s charity work, generous deeds and warm personality.

“She is a kindhearted and compassionate person whose identity is defined by her romantic partner,” her lawyers wrote.

A college friend, Sharon Tether, said Ms. Menendez had largely been unprepared for life as a senator’s wife.

“She is not,” Ms. Tether wrote, “a criminal mastermind.”