A lawyer for the wealthy businessman accused of bribing Sen. Robert Menendez suggested in court on Thursday that the trial is an attack on their Hispanic heritage.
Kirk Ogrosky, the defense attorney for co-defendant Salomon Melgen, made the remarks in opening arguments Thursday, a day after the trial began.
Ogrosky said Melgan and the New Jersey Democrat are “part of a fellowship of Hispanic-Americans” that “pay it forward, help young Hispanic-Americans improve their lives” and “play a larger role in American society,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The prosecution was an “attack on that whole group,” Ogrosky reportedly said.
“This case isn’t only an attack on those two men. It’s an attack on that whole group,” the defense attorney said, according to Politico.
Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist who has other business interests, is accused of offering Menendez free flights and gifts in exchange for help getting visas for girlfriends and the senator’s assistance in a Medicare billing dispute and a port contract in the Dominican Republic.
Melgen was convicted in April of fraud for overbilling Medicare by as much as $105 million.
Before being indicted 2015, Menendez repaid Melgen nearly $70,000 for three unreported flights aboard Melgen’s plane after ultimately unconfirmed reports that the men patronized prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.
Prosecutors uncovered other flights, in addition to numerous vacations taken by Menendez at Melgen’s Caribbean villa in the Dominican Republic and on his dime at a hotel room in Paris, along with legal defense and campaign donations.
Menendez and Melgen argue they were close friends who were doing each other favors, not committing crimes.
