Sen. Bob Menendez accused of putting 'power up for sale' as corruption closing arguments begin

July 8 (UPI) -- Closing arguments in Sen. Bob Menendez' federal corruption trial got underway Monday afternoon in New York as prosecutors accused the Democratic lawmaker of putting "his power up for sale."

Menendez, 70, who is charged with 18 federal corruption charges of bribery, obstruction and acting as a foreign agent, is accused -- along with his wife, Nadine -- of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for political influence.

During Monday's closing arguments, prosecutor Paul Monteleoni called it a "clear pattern of corruption."

"Menendez was in charge. His wife, Nadine, was his go-between," Monteleoni claimed, adding that Menendez "put his power up for sale."

After nearly two months of testimony, Menendez said he fully expects to be found not guilty.

"The government is intoxicated with their own rhetoric," the New Jersey lawmaker and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told reporters outside the courthouse. "They spent two hours on charts."

"I expect that my lawyers will produce a powerful and convincing summation, to deduce how the evidence came out, how they failed across the board and have the jury render a verdict of not guilty," Menendez added.

During the eight-week trial, prosecutors called several dozen witnesses and presented hundreds of documents, emails, text messages and phone records as they claimed Menendez received more than $480,000 in cash, gold bars and a luxury car from three New Jersey businessmen.

Menendez and two of the businessmen pleaded not guilty. The third businessman pleaded guilty and testified against the others. The defense rested last week without calling Menendez to testify.

"From my perspective, the government has failed to prove every aspect of its case, and for me to testify and give them another chance for a second summation -- go through the whole case again, and then go ahead and have their summation, and then have a rebuttal case at the end -- it's simply something that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever," Menendez argued.

During the trial, lawyers for the Democratic lawmaker argued that the gold bars belonged to his wife and that the large amounts of cash found inside the Menendez home were part of a lifelong habit of storing money following his family's 1951 escape from Cuba.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, are facing separate trials after it was revealed she had breast cancer and would undergo mastectomy surgery. She also pleaded not guilty. Her trial date has been postponed to Aug. 5.

Last month, Menendez filed to run for re-election as an independent, after serving nearly two decades as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate and 14 years in the U.S. House before that.

Menendez has faced corruption charges before. A corruption prosecution on unrelated charges in 2017 ended with a deadlocked jury.