Menendez’s lawyers had asked to keep those sentences under seal because they believed publicizing that defense strategy could taint the jury pool. But a judge ordered the passages to be released on Tuesday after a coalition of media organizations sought their disclosure.
The senator and his wife will be tried separately, a federal judge ruled earlier this month.
Bob Menendez’s trial is scheduled to begin on May 6 in Manhattan federal court while Nadine Menendez’s trial is expected to begin later this summer.
Lawyers for Nadine Menendez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bob and Nadine Menendez, and two associates were initially charged in September, in a scheme that officials say involved gold bars, stacks of cash and efforts to use the senator’s powerful position to secretly benefit the Egyptian government.
In March, prosecutors added charges involving extortion and obstruction of justice. The later indictment alleges again that Menendez and his wife accepted bribes — including cash, gold and a luxury car — in exchange for the senator to use his influence to benefit the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
One of the bribes alleged by prosecutors was purportedly for a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible for Nadine when she was first dating the senator.
She received the luxury vehicle, according to prosecutors, from a business associate of one of her friends — in exchange for Menendez’s alleged efforts to disrupt ongoing criminal proceedings implicating two people close to that associate, who was charged alongside the couple, in addition to two other businessmen in New Jersey.
Aaron Schaffer, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Praveena Somasundaram and Anumita Kaur contributed to this report.
