NJ AG investigates police response to fatal crash involving Menendez's wife

author: FutureCar Staff    

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office has launched an investigation into the handling of a fatal car crash in 2018 involving Nadine Arslanian, the wife of Senator Bob Menendez. Arslanian struck Richard Koop in Bogota, New Jersey on December 12, 2018. At the time of the incident, Arslanian was dating Senator Menendez but they were not yet married. Both Arslanian and Senator Menendez are now facing charges of felony bribery and corruption.

After the crash, the Bogota Police arrived at the scene to question Arslanian. She claimed that Koop had been jaywalking and had put himself in the path of her car. Michael Mordaga, a former director of Hackensack Police and ex-chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, was also present at the scene.

The police allowed Arslanian to leave without conducting a sobriety test or obtaining her phone records. She was never charged for the incident and was later given a new convertible Mercedes as a replacement for her damaged vehicle.

A recent report by The New York Times reveals that an inquiry has been initiated to investigate whether Arslanian was treated too leniently or hastily. Koop's family has long maintained that the incident was not thoroughly investigated.

Dashcam footage from the crash scene shows Arslanian wearing a dress and fur coat while speaking to a police officer. Mordaga can be heard in the background, asking the patrolmen if they took a statement from Arslanian. Mordaga, who retired in 2016, has been associated with organized crime and mob families, including the Lucchese family.

According to federal charging documents, Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman implicated in the bribery scheme, expressing her need for a new car. Prosecutors allege that Hana and another defendant, Jose Uribe, provided Arslanian with $15,000 in cash as a down payment for a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, worth $60,000, and also covered the monthly financing payments.

The car was registered in March 2019, and after receiving it, Arslanian thanked Uribe in a text message. The federal indictment claims that in exchange for the Mercedes, Senator Menendez attempted to interfere in a New Jersey criminal investigation at the request of Hana and Uribe.

Both Senator Menendez and his wife have pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, which involve allegations of bribery and extortion related to the Egyptian government. Despite calls from his Democratic Party colleagues to step down, Senator Menendez has chosen to remain in office, although he temporarily stepped down as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the charges were unsealed.

The indictment further alleges that Senator Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2018 and 2022 from Hana, Uribe, and Fred Daibes in exchange for using his power and influence to protect and benefit the businessmen and the Government of Egypt.

FutureCar Staff