By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bob Menendez “put his power up for sale” and helped businessmen who showered the once-powerful senator and his wife with bribes, a prosecutor said on Monday in his closing argument at the New Jersey Democrat’s corruption trial.
Over more than seven weeks of testimony, federal prosecutors sought to persuade a jury that Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in the form of gold bars, cash, and car and mortgage payments.
In exchange, prosecutors said he sought to help Egypt secure billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance and aid the business and legal interests of businessmen.
“It wasn’t enough for him to be one of the most powerful people in Washington,” prosecutor Paul Monteleoni said in his closing argument in Manhattan federal court. “He also wanted to pile up riches for himself and his wife.”
At the trial, jurors saw gold bars federal …