(Bloomberg) -- US Senator Robert Menendez and his wife don’t want jurors at their upcoming corruption trial to learn about the power couple’s luxurious lifestyle that included cigars, handbags and jewelry. 

Lawyers for Menendez and his wife, Nadine, objected Friday to prosecutors seeking to offer such evidence in New York federal court, where they’re accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a car in exchange for political favors for three businessmen.

Jurors shouldn’t be told about their “preference for expensive luxury items” including his preference for Bombay Sapphire Gin, cigars and upscales meals on a limited salary, and her handbags and jewelry while desiring a Mercedes-Benz, according to separate filings by the couple’s lawyers. 

“There is no yacht or vacation home that was draining Senator Menendez’s finances,” lawyers for the New Jersey Democrat wrote in the filing. “He lived well within his means as a federal government employee.”

Menendez’s lawyers ridiculed prosecutors for trying to brand run of the mill purchases as luxury items.

$23.99 Gin

Nothing about a bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin, which sells for $23.99, “smells of excess,” they said.  

But in the flurry of Friday filings, prosecutors also included new details about their investigation of Menendez’s relationship with a medical testing company that hired his wife. The judge had previously said the company’s owner was “an alleged beneficiary of the bribery scheme,” one filing said. 

The new filings identified the company and its owner, neither of which have been charged with a crime and are not referred to in the indictment.

Robert Menendez is charged with crimes including bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. His wife has also been charged along with two businessmen. They all pleaded not guilty. A third businessman pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Menendez, 70, has seen his popularity plummet since he was first indicted in September and stepped down as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Defense lawyers responded to a letter by prosecutors saying the government wanted to introduce the evidence to show the couple’s motive or because it’s “inextricably intertwined” with the charges. But defense lawyers say it would unfairly prejudice the couple at a trial set to begin May 6. 

“Evidence of a criminal defendant’s specific purchases or possessions that the government touts as ‘lavish’ or ‘luxurious’ is particularly pernicious in arousing emotions of the jury,” the lawyers wrote in one of several late-night filings. 

At the 2021 trial of Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes, prosecutors were allowed to introduce some evidence of her appetite for fame and fortune as a motive. She was convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to just over 11 years in prison.

The most explosive evidence against Menendez includes gold bars and about $500,000 in cash seized at the couple’s house. In one filing, his lawyers said prosecutors will likely “seek to inundate the jury with references to cash, gold bars, jewelry and other items of value purportedly seized from the Menendez home.” 

Prosecutors should be limited to introducing only an envelope of cash that allegedly bore the fingerprints of Fred Daibes, a real estate developer indicted with Menendez, according to the filing. Defense lawyers said they also won’t object to evidence of gold bars or home furnishings that Daibes allegedly provided. 

“But other than a single envelope with some cash in it that purportedly bears Daibes’ fingerprint, there is not evidence linking any of the other cash, jewelry seized from the senator’s home to any alleged co-conspirator,” according to the filing. 

‘Cash in Home’

Prosecutors said in a filing that Menendez has notified the government he may seek to use an expert “concerning his alleged reason(s) for keeping cash in his home.” If so, prosecutors will object. 

A defiant Menendez said on Sept. 25 - days after his first indictment - that he regularly withdrew cash from his personal accounts for “emergencies.” He cited his family’s history in Cuba of fearing their money would be confiscated by the government as the reason he liked to keep cash.

Prosecutors also may seek to introduce evidence that a New Jersey company that conducts Covid-19 testing, Fusion Diagnostics Inc., gave “things of values” to Menendez and his wife, according to a March 29 letter from the government that Menendez’s lawyers filed with the court Friday. 

Those things of value included “household services and gifts, in exchange for Robert Menendez acting on Fusion’s behalf, including by seeking to influence municipal authorities in various New Jersey cities to grant Fusion contracts and/or other authorization to perform Covid-19 testing,” the letter said. 

US District Judge Sidney Stein also said in a March 4 ruling that the owner of Fusion was among the “alleged beneficiaries of the bribery scheme,” according to the letter. 

Fusion’s owner, Moataz Abdalla, didn’t respond to requests for comment sent through his company and LinkedIn page. 

A filing by Nadine Menendez’s lawyers said government filings show Abdalla “has informed law enforcement agents that he hired Ms. Menendez to do marketing work for Fusion” and denied it was because of her relationship with the senator. 

“Mr. Abdalla also has denied that Senator Menendez made any calls on behalf of him or Fusion,” according to the filing. 

Lawyers for the couple object to use of the Fusion evidence at trial. Her lawyers said the Fusion evidence “is not ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the charged crimes, nor is it necessary to ‘complete the story’” of the alleged crimes. 

Read More: US Senator Bob Menendez Indicted Again in US Bribery Case 

Lawyers for Nadine Menendez from the law firm of Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears also notified the judge they were withdrawing from the case. It wasn’t immediately clear who will represent her at trial next month. 

The case is US v. Menendez, 23-cr-490, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

(Updates with details in new filings)

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