NEW YORK — A witness at Senator Bob Menendez’s bribery trial testified Friday that the cost of certifying that meat sent to Egypt met Islamic dietary requirements skyrocketed after a single U.S. company was given a monopoly in a cozy deal. Prosecutors say the Democrat made a settlement in exchange for bribes.
James Bret Tate, a U.S. diplomat based in Cairo for several years who represented U.S. agricultural interests, told a Manhattan federal court jury how Halal meat certification ended up in the hands of a single company run by Menendez’s co-defendant, Wael “Will” Hana. , rather than several companies that had done this in the past.
Prosecutors say Menendez, 70, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, was behind the creation of the monopoly as partial payback for bribes he received from Hana, a friend of Menendez’s wife. Among the charges against Menendez were bribery, extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. He and Hana have pleaded not guilty to all charges, along with a third businessman and co-defendant, real estate developer Fred Daibes.
Tate said the cost of certifying a container the size of an 18-wheel truck carrying 23 tons of meat increased dramatically from between $200 and $400 per container to more than $5,000 for the same service after Hana’s company gained the monopoly.
“The fee has increased dramatically,” Tate testified, saying he was trying to expand the number of companies that could export meat to Egypt in 2019 from the four that were already doing so when he was abruptly informed that Egypt wanted one company would handle it. and had specified that it was Hana’s company.
Tate said he was surprised because Hana had no experience in the field and seemed so clueless that he asked him at a meeting how certification worked.
Tate was the second witness to testify during a trial that began Monday with jury selection that lasted three days. The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was also arrested when the charges were unsealed last fall, but her trial was postponed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her husband revealed Thursday. She has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors said they will prove during a trial expected to last two months that Menendez and his wife accepted gold and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to help three New Jersey businessmen in various ways.
In an opening statement Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said the Egyptian government “had handed Hana a lucrative monopoly.”
“Hana actually had no experience in this industry. Zero. But you will find out that he did have connections in the Egyptian government and that he had a U.S. senator in his pocket who promised military aid,” she said.
On Thursday, Hana’s attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said in an opening statement that his client did nothing wrong in building his business.
“The decision was Egypt’s, it was not an American decision,” he said. And he said Menendez was not asked anything regarding the case since Hana had relationships with Egyptian officials.
“No crime at all,” Lustberg said. “We are a country of immigrants, including the close-knit Egyptian community that Will Hana is part of.”
Lustberg said Hana’s company signed a five-year contract in March 2021 to certify all U.S. meat sent to Egypt after Egypt concluded that U.S. companies that had done so were doing a poor job.
“Mr. Hana continues to adhere to these halal contracts not because of connections to Mr. Menendez, but on the merits,” the attorney said.
At the time of the high-stakes events of the trial, Menendez held the powerful position of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he was forced to relinquish after his arrest.