Tracey Shimonis Obituary, Death – Prosecutors claim that Nadine Menendez, the future wife of prominent U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, murdered a man in December 2018 with her automobile and fled the scene without being accused. The new details align with an auto “accident” mentioned in the indictment.
The results of a police investigation were first reported by The Record of New Jersey on Wednesday. They show that on December 12, 2018, at about 7:30 p.m., Richard Koop, 49, was shot and killed outside his Bogota, New Jersey, home. Koop’s family and friends informed The New York Times that he had left a bar in a rideshare that dropped him off at his apartment across the street.
Nadine Menendez, who went by Nadine Arslanian at the time and wasn’t yet married to the senator, “was not at fault in this collision,” according to a Bogota Police Department inquiry. When Mr. Koop crossed the roadway, he did not utilize a pedestrian crossing signal or a crosswalk. The file contains no evidence of a drug or alcohol test that she took.
According to a directive from the state attorney general, protocols exist for doing such tests on drivers involved in fatal collisions, but only in the event that there is a plausible suspicion that drugs or alcohol played a part in the event. David Schertler, Nadine Menendez’s lawyer, took a message from the Associated Press on Thursday, but he did not pick up right away.
The spokesperson for Menendez’s office advised the Associated Press to contact her again for comment. In dashcam footage, Nadine Menendez can be heard asking police officials why Koop was in the road. Her statement to the police is that she “didn’t do anything wrong.” Koop “ran across the roadway and jumped onto the hood” of her car, according to her testimony to the police.
According to a spokeswoman for the office, once Bogota’s municipal officials determined that this was not a criminal case, they reached out to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office for help with the investigation. Koop’s sister, Rosemarie Koop-Angelicola, voiced skepticism on Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press on the extent of the inquiry into her brother’s death.
She went on to say that everybody concerned is aware that genuine incidents do happen. We’re willing to consider the concept, but only after a comprehensive investigation has been completed. There are serious problems with this. Koop-Angelicola extolled the virtues of her gifted brother, calling him outgoing, smart, and funny. He coached his son’s youth soccer teams as well.
She described Rich as the most kind and ordinary person she had ever met. The inquiry revealed that after hitting Koop and a parked car, the black Mercedes-Benz had significant damage to its front end and windscreen. She allegedly complained about her lack of transportation in a text message to Wael Hana, one of three businessmen accused of conspiring with the senator and his wife in the alleged bribery conspiracy, about a month later.
The senator, who married her in October 2020, acted to try to stifle an unrelated criminal prosecution for a New Jersey businessman in exchange for a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible, which she signed papers for in April 2019, according to the prosecution. This was because Nadine Menendez’s need for a car was so great.
