The Department of Justice announced on Friday that it will retry Senator Robert Menendez, the senior Democratic senator from New Jersey, on federal corruption charges, two months after his initial trial ended in a mistrial after a jury said it could not reach a verdict.
The department filed a brief document on Friday in the federal court in Newark announcing its plans.
Mr. Menendez had been charged with 12 counts of corruption, including six counts of bribery and three counts of honest services fraud.
Mr. Menendez was accused of doing favors for a close friend, Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy eye doctor from Florida, in exchange for gifts, including rides on his private plane, and political donations. Dr. Melgen was charged in the case, but jurors also deadlocked on the charges against him.
“The United States files this notice of intent to retry the defendants and requests that the Court set the case for retrial at the earliest possible date,” it said. “Defendants Robert Menendez and Salomon Melgen have been indicted for bribery and corruption by two separate grand juries properly empaneled in the District of New Jersey.”
Mr. Menendez is up for re-election in 2018, and while he has not officially announced that is running, he has given no indication that he intends to retire and following the trial last year he locked up every key endorsement in New Jersey.
“We regret that the DOJ, after spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars, and failing to prove a single allegation in a court of law, has decided to double down on an unjust prosecution,” Mr. Menendez’s office said in a statement. “Evidently, they did not hear the overwhelming voices of the New Jerseyans who served on the jury this fall. Senator Menendez fully intends to be vindicated — again.”
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