Bob Menendez’s spouse Nadine Arslanian isn’t any worldwide legal “mastermind” however “a submissive housewife,” her longtime buddies advised The Publish — after the Democratic senator’s corruption trial started with him throwing her below the bus.
Federal brokers who performed a raid of their residence in June 2022 discovered $480,000 in money stuffed into envelopes and coat pockets in addition to 13 gold bars, price greater than $100,000, in keeping with court docket papers. The couple have vigorously denied the costs.
On Wednesday, Menendez’s legal professionals blamed Arslanian, saying she “saved him at the hours of darkness” on monetary issues and stashed gold bars in a locked closet the place she saved her garments on the couple’s Englewood Cliffs, NJ, residence.
Legal professionals for the embattled New Jersey politician, 70, portrayed Arslanian, 57, as “a tall and exquisite international girl” who grew up in Lebanon, speaks 4 languages and calls Menendez “amour de ma vie,” French for “love of my life” in opening statements Wednesday.
However regardless of her husband’s description of her, buddies advised The Publish that Arslanian will not be a world sophisticate.
She is “clingy” with males, and would usually deliver her boyfriends to a “ladies’ night time out,” mentioned certainly one of her longtime buddies. “She isn’t any mastermind,” one other mentioned.
Additionally they described her as more and more “remoted” after she minimize off communication with even her closest buddies, altering her cellphone quantity and refusing to see them months earlier than she was indicted on corruption and bribery costs together with Menendez and three others in September.
Pat Dori mentioned he felt compelled to talk out after he examine Menendez revealing on Thursday that his spouse had stage three breast most cancers and Wednesday’s opening assertion blaming his spouse for the gold bars.
“She’s not the Joan Collins character in ‘Dynasty’ that they’re portraying her to be,” mentioned Dori, referring to the British actor within the Eighties cleaning soap opera about dueling oil-rich Texas households. Collins performed Alexis Carrington Colby, the devious and conniving spouse of an oil tycoon.
“She’s not a feminine Bond villain, however a struggling housewife making an attempt to make it,” he advised The Publish.
“She’s incapable of masterminding something like this. She was introduced as much as obey her husband, sure. However she isn’t any mastermind.”
As an alternative, Dori mentioned Arslanian is cornered — with out cash of her personal to pay her legal professionals and battling most cancers. “She’s in dire monetary straits and her buddies really feel she’s being hit from each potential angle.”
Associates advised The Publish they had been shocked when Menendez introduced that Arslanian is affected by breast most cancers, and present process therapy which is able to embrace a mastectomy.
Some are fearful she won’t survive her personal trial which is scheduled to happen in July, after her therapies are full. Her attorneys declined to.
“I’m fearful she will not be going to have the ability to survive this,” Dori mentioned. “She is sick and being steamrolled.”
However she is unlikely to go away Menendez, buddies mentioned, regardless that the senator doesn’t look like staying together with her at their modest split-level residence — at the least not through the first week of his trial.
On Friday he emerged from a Manhattan lodge to breakfast on fries and Tabasco sauce earlier than heading for court docket.
“She’s the sort who desires to be together with her man 24/7, and the sort who believes in fairy tales,” mentioned a buddy who didn’t need to be recognized.
“She’s actually quaint relating to marriage. She can also be completely naive — the form of one who by no means will get a joke.”
Associates advised The Publish that Arslanian, a divorcee with two youngsters when she first met the senator, first started relationship Menendez in 2012, contradicting official accounts that they first met in 2018.
“They dated for a number of months in 2012, after which moved on to different folks,” mentioned the buddy. “Then they hooked again up once more in 2018, however they definitely knew one another for a very long time.”
Arslanian went on up to now Douglas Anton, a New Jersey lawyer who as soon as represented disgraced musician R. Kelly.
Anton mentioned he known as native police when Arslanian went lacking in 2018 whereas she was on a secret romantic getaway with Menendez within the Dominican Republic.
“I did a lacking individuals report, they usually needed to come to the home to verify to make it possible for somebody didn’t kill her and put her in a closet,” Anton told The Post last month.
Police discovered the lights on in addition to televisions blaring in the lounge and a bed room, in keeping with northJersey.com, citing data obtained from the Englewood Cliffs Police Division.
Arslanian was “discovered” a number of days later when she boarded a flight again to the US, Anton mentioned.
Associates inspired Arslanian to marry the senator as soon as they began relationship once more, largely as a result of they felt she wanted monetary safety and medical health insurance after she suffered a head damage.
“She was going by means of excruciating ache and we noticed Bob as her gentle,” mentioned Dori.
“We inspired her to marry Bob,” mentioned the opposite buddy. “After she met him, she put him on a pedestal. Every little thing was all the time Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob.”
He proposed in entrance of the Taj Mahal throughout a Congressional journey to India.
Menendez wooed her in different methods by interesting to her Armenian heritage and lobbying the Senate to acknowledge the 1915 Armenian genocide, which it handed in 2019.
The problem was of paramount significance to her household, particularly her father, now 94.
Arslanian told the Armenian Report podcast that 13 “rapid members” of her household had been killed within the genocide.
On Dec. 12, 2019, Menendez introduced that the decision had handed the Senate and choked up when he made the televised announcement.
He texted Arslanian, by then his fiancée, that afternoon, “Reality, perseverance and a dedication to a trigger better than your self, in honor of your loved ones, and all who suffered, I hope your father was watching.” He added “By no means Neglect” in Armenian script.
The couple wed in October 2020 at an Armenian church in Queens, New York. A lot of Arslanian’s closest buddies didn’t attend the marriage due to COVID protocols, mentioned one other buddy.
“We had been so completely satisfied for her,” the buddy mentioned.
However after Menendez’s legal professionals blamed Arslanian for the alleged bribery, buddies aren’t so positive that she made the best determination, or will stick with the senator after their respective trials are over.
“Sadly, this trial has ruined her repute,” mentioned Dori. “I believe proper now she’s having problem seeing gentle on the finish of the tunnel.”
