Nadine Arslanian was driving in suburban New Jersey on a December evening nearly five years ago when something terrible happened: She struck and killed a pedestrian outside his home.
It seemed the man had “jumped on my windshield,” she told police in a conversation recorded by a dash cam. Arslanian, who 10 months earlier had begun dating her now-husband, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was released without a summons. A police sergeant in the borough of Bogota, across the river from Hackensack, wrote in a report that she was “not at fault.”
Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, leave federal court on Sept. 27, in New York. Menendez pled not guilty to federal charges alleging he used his powerful post to secretly advance Egyptian interests and carry out favors for local businessmen in exchange for bribes of cash and gold bars. Seth Wenig/Associated Press
Details of the December 2018 crash emerge from the dash-cam footage and other police records were first reported by northjersey.com and the New York Times and obtained by The Washington Post.
The incident went unreported at the time. An obituary for the deceased man, 49-year-old Richard Koop, memorialized him as an “avid outdoorsman, sportsman, and music fan with a great sense of humor.”
Now, the fatal incident fills in new information about the couple’s circumstances when, prosecutors allege, the senator and his now-wife took bribes to use his official position for the benefit of businessmen in New Jersey and the government in Egypt.
One of the bribes alleged by prosecutors benefited the senator’s now-wife in the form of a Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible. It’s among the items photographed and included in the 39-page indictment unveiled last month against the couple.
Cash and gold bars made for more eye-popping visuals. But the car, prosecutors argue, was key to one of the most brazen maneuvers they accuse Menendez and his wife of orchestrating. 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.
The indictment refers only elliptically to a “car accident” in late 2018 that left the senator’s then-girlfriend without a vehicle. But the local police records show the incident took place in the borough of Bogota and left Arslanian’s Mercedes-Benz sedan unrecoverable and the pedestrian dead.
“Mr. Koop was jaywalking and did not cross the street at an intersection or in a marked crosswalk,” the Bogota police report states.
An attorney for the senator’s wife declined to comment. The senator’s office pointed to comments he made to reporters Wednesday morning: “It was a tragic accident and obviously we think of the family.”
Police responded to calls of a pedestrian struck by a car at 7:35 p.m. on Dec. 12, 2018, on a busy street in the borough of Bogota. Surveillance video from a nearby business, released by the Bogota Police Department, shows that the senator’s then-girlfriend did not exit her vehicle after striking Koop but instead backed up, paused and then proceeded down the street, no longer in view of the camera.
In a 911 call obtained by The Post, she told a dispatcher that “some guy just jumped in front of my car on my windshield.” She seemed shaken, asking, “What street am I on?”
Police found Koop bleeding from his head and his body badly mangled. He was taken to Holy Name Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 8:18 p.m. A Bergen County medical examiner’s report recorded the manner of death as an accident.
Dash-cam footage from shortly after 8 p.m. shows Arslanian, shivering in a dress and dark coat, asking an officer, “Why was the guy in the middle of the street?” and pleading, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The responding officers were friendly. “You’re not under arrest,” one assured her, saying authorities were simply seeking basic information, such as the direction she was driving.
The police records make no mention of sobriety tests conducted at the scene, and the dash-cam footage includes no questioning about drinking or drug use. Arslanian indicated to officers that she did not wish to be questioned without an attorney present. “I don’t want to do anything wrong,” she said.
When an officer sought to search Arslanian’s phone, she at first assented, but then quickly asked for the device back, according to a police report dated the day after the incident. A report from early 2019 indicates that authorities issued a subpoena for Arslanian’s phone records, but it’s not clear if the search was conducted or what it generated.
With the help of a man who arrived at the scene, Arslanian was allowed to retrieve some items from her car. The man never appeared in view of the dash cam, but he introduced himself to authorities present as a retired police officer from Hackensack, explaining that his “buddy’s wife” who was friends with her.
Koop was survived by his mother, son, ex-wife, brother and sister, among other family members, according to his obituary. His ex-wife, Danielle DeBouter, told The Post that Koop was a devoted father who drove two hours each way to watch their son compete in swim meets and take him to dinner afterward. “Nothing can make up for the loss of my son’s dad,” she said.
DeBouter said Koop’s family never heard from the senator or his then-girlfriend about the crash.
An attorney for Koop’s estate, Sheri Breen, said she only learned that Arslanian was connected to Menendez weeks after the incident when the senator appeared with her at an auto shop where her wrecked car had been taken. Breen said Koop had just been dropped off on his street by an Uber when he was struck.
Arslanian quickly went about trying to find a new vehicle, according to last month’s indictment.
Prosecutors say she sent multiple text messages around January 2019 to a friend of hers and co-defendant in the case, Wael Hana, about her lack of a car. Prosecutors allege that Menendez ultimately agreed to intervene in a criminal prosecution of interest to an associate of Hana’s in exchange for a new car. The prosecution dealt with charges of insurance fraud related to a trucking company, according to the indictment.
After a dinner that month, Hana sent Arslanian text messages about the criminal prosecution, according to the indictment. Two days later, Menendez called a prosecutor in the New Jersey attorney general’s office “in an attempt, through advice and pressure, to cause a resolution of the prosecution,” according to the indictment. Before the call, the indictment alleges, Menendez received multiple text messages from his then-girlfriend about the matter – messages both of them deleted.
Weeks later, according to the indictment, Hana’s associate and a co-defendant in the case, Jose Uribe, provided the senator’s then-girlfriend with $15,000 in cash. A day after that, the indictment alleges, she made a $15,000 down payment on the Mercedes-Benz. And prosecutors allege that he would later manage monthly financing payments for the car.
Uribe would continue to appeal to Arslanian for assistance and, on at least one occasion, received a call from Menendez from his Senate office a month after another meeting between the lawmaker and the state prosecutor, according to the indictment. After that call, the indictment claims, Uribe texted the senator’s then-girlfriend, “I just got a call and I am a very happy person.” The couple and Uribe then attended a celebratory dinner, according to the indictment.
Uribe’s aim, he had written in a message cited in the indictment, was to “kill and stop all investigation.” An attorney for Uribe did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Hana previously said the charges against him “have absolutely no merit.”
Arslanian was overjoyed, according to the indictment. After purchasing the new vehicle, she texted the senator, “Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes.”
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