Jan. 19 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors on Friday announced their intention to retry Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on corruption charges after a mistrial.
Jurors were unable to reach a verdict in his November trial.
The U.S. Justice Department indicted Menendez in April 2015 on 14 felony counts of illegally accepting gifts and political contributions from Florida eye doctor Dr. Salomon Melgen who was charged with 76 counts of Medicare fraud for stealing up to $190 million from the program.
Both Menendez and Melgen have maintained their innocence.
The Justice Department was facing a deadline to either retry the case or drop the charges later in January.
“The United States files this notice of intent to retry the defendants and requests that the court set the case for retrial at the earliest possible date,” prosecutors said in a note to Judge William Walls in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
A spokeswoman for Menendez told NJ.com the senator expects to be acquitted.
“We regret that the DOJ, after spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars, and failing to prove a single allegation in a court of law, has decided to double down on an unjust prosecution. Evidently, they did not hear the overwhelming voices of the New Jerseyans who served on the jury this fall,” she said.
