NEW YORK — Nadine Menendez was found guilty on Monday of acting as the partner in crime of her convicted husband, ex-Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, by brokering backdoor bribery deals that saw the couple showered in gold bullion bars, wads of cash, and a Mercedes-Benz convertible.

Jurors, who got the case Friday, convicted Nadine of 15 counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiring to make her husband a secret agent of Egypt, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion, and obstruction of justice for trying to thwart the feds’ investigative efforts.

She faces significant prison time when sentenced on June 12 by Manhattan Federal Judge Sidney Stein.

The 58-year-old, known as Nadine Arslanian before she wed the embattled former lawmaker in 2020, was indicted alongside her husband in September 2023 on charges alleging she arranged a series of deals between her husband and a trio of New Jersey businessmen starting in 2018, shortly after they began dating.

Last July, Menendez, who was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was found guilty of acting as a foreign agent, bribery, and other offenses and, in January, was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Nadine declined to comment on the verdict. Her attorney, Barry Coburn, said he was personally devastated, declining to say whether they’d appeal, seek a pardon from Trump, or speak to why Bob Menendez wasn’t in attendance.

In a statement, interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said Nadine had played a “critical role” in the corruption and foreign influence scheme.

“Nadine Menendez and Senator Menendez were partners in crime. Over the span of five years, Nadine Menendez agreed to accept and accepted all sorts of bribes – including gold bars, cash, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and a no-show job – all in exchange for the Senator’s corrupt official acts,” Podolsky said.

The ex-senator raked in almost half a million dollars in cash, $150,000 worth of gold bars, designer watches, and Formula 1 tickets from his corrupt benefactors in exchange for pulling strings for them behind the scenes, jurors at both trials heard. A luxury convertible gifted to Nadine in the scheme replaced the car she totaled after striking and killing a pedestrian in a 2018 car crash in a northern New Jersey suburb, as The Record reported.

The couple’s co-defendants, Wael Hana, 41, who ran a Halal certification business, and real estate developer Fred Daibes, 67, were also found guilty of related charges. The third co-conspirator, N.J. businessman Jose Uribe, cooperated in exchange for leniency.

Among other actions, Menendez directed aid and weaponry to Egypt, coerced the highest levels of New Jersey state law enforcement to squash a criminal probe into Uribe and an associate, took bribes from Daibes to meddle in a pending federal prosecution against him in the Garden State, and pocketed bribes from Hana to pressure the U.S. Department of Agriculture to let him maintain an exclusive monopoly over U.S. exports of halal products to Egypt.

The fraud came to light after FBI agents searched the couple’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J., home in the summer of 2022 and turned up more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and over $480,000 in cash.

At Nadine’s trial, the feds argued she played a central role in the scheme, acting as a go-between by keeping him in the loop and urging him to carry out the businessmen’s requests. Her case was delayed while she underwent treatment for breast cancer, undergoing a double mastectomy while her husband went on trial last year.

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