A top New Jersey cop rushed to Bob Menendez’s wife’s side after she killed a man in a 2018 crash with her Mercedes, questioning patrol officers on the scene until she was allowed to leave without a sobriety test or handing over her phone .
Menendez’s wife, Nadine Arslanian, fatally attacked 49-year-old Richard Koop in Bogota, New Jersey on December 12, 2018. She was dating the Democratic Senator from New Jersey at the time, but they were not yet married. Both are now accused of bribery and corruption.
After the accident in 2018, Bogota police rushed to the scene to question Arslanian.
She told them Hoop was running around and getting in the path of her car.
Michael Mordaga, the former director of the Hackensack Police Department and former chief detective for the Bergen County District Attorney’s Office, rushed to Nadine Arslanian’s aid after the fatal accident
Dashcam video from the scene shows Arslanian wearing a dress and fur coat while speaking to a police officer. Mordaga was never shown on camera, but his voice was recorded in the background
Nadine Arslanian Menendez is charged with alleged bribery along with her husband, Senator Bob Menedez
According to the New York Post, Michael Mordaga, the former director of the Hackensack Police Department and former chief detective in the Bergen County District Attorney’s Office, was also there.
Mordaga is the man who asks the patrol officers if they have taken a statement from Arslanian.
“That’s my buddy’s wife, who’s friends with her.”
He said could you do me a favor and take her there because her friend just got in a car accident? handed over to the public prosecutor’s office?’
Officers allowed Arslanian to leave the scene without conducting a field sobriety test or releasing her phone records.
She was never charged and later received a new Mercedes convertible to replace the vehicle damaged in the accident.
According to federal charging documents, about a month after the accident, Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman also charged with bribery, complaining that she didn’t own a car.
The accident killed 49-year-old Richard Koop (above) on December 12, 2018 in Bogota, New Jersey
Shortly after the accident, Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman who was also charged with bribery, arranged for Arslanian to purchase this Mercedes, prosecutors said
Prosecutors say Hana and another defendant in the case, Jose Uribe, eventually paid Arslanian $15,000 in cash as a down payment on a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible worth $60,000 and also the monthly have made financing payments.
The car was registered in March 2019. After picking up the car, Arslanian thanked Uribe in a text message and wrote, “I will never forget this,” the federal indictment says.
Prosecutors allege that in exchange for the Mercedes, Menendez attempted to interfere in a criminal investigation in New Jersey at the behest of Hana and Uribe.
Menendez and his wife have pleaded not guilty to federal charges stemming from bribery and extortion allegations against the Egyptian government.
Two of the gold bars found during a search of Senator Bob Menendez’s home and safe deposit box by federal agents
Bob and Nadine Menendez attend an event in Italy on September 1, 2023
So far, Menendez has resisted calls from his Democratic colleagues to resign from office, although he “temporarily” stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the indictment was quashed last month.
Prosecutors allege the senator provided confidential information to the Egyptian government to help an Egyptian-American businessman protect his monopoly.
According to the indictment, between 2018 and 2022, Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hana, Uribe and Fred Daibes in exchange for “using his power and influence to protect and enrich these businessmen and to benefit the Egyptian government.”
Fred Daibes arrives for his court date alongside Senator Bob Menendez at Manhattan Federal Court on September 27, 2023 in New York City