On November 16, 2017, after a 10-week federal criminal trial of APKS client Dr. Salomon Melgen and his longtime friend US Senator Robert Menendez, Judge William H. Walls of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey declared a mistrial. According to press interviews of the jurors, the jury deadlocked after voting 10 to 2 in favor of acquitting both men on all 18 counts, which included charges of bribery, honest services fraud, Travel Act violations, and conspiracy. This was the first trial of a sitting US Senator in almost four decades. The prosecution was brought by the US Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section. Dr. Melgen's defense team was led by APKS attorneys Kirk Ogrosky and Murad Hussain, and included counsel from Kobre & Kim LLP.
In what the media termed a "blistering" closing argument, Mr. Ogrosky outlined how the prosecutors fabricated a timeline to create the false impression that Dr. Melgen gave political contributions and personal hospitality in exchange for official acts. Mr. Hussain led the joint defense team's legal arguments, including its efforts to show that the First Amendment and the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision barred the bribery charges based on political contributions, and that the Senator did not take any "official acts" as defined by the Supreme Court's 2016 McDonnell decision.
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