WATCH: Cops Let Bob Menendez’s Future Wife Nadine Arslanian Go Without Breath Test After She Hit and Killed a Pedestrian
She told police at the scene after the 2018 incident that the victim 'jumped on my windshield'
The aftermath of embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez's wife fatally striking a man with her car surfaced on video recently after the couple was indicted in a bribery scheme that prosecutors say is linked to the car.
Nadine Arslanian was driving her Mercedes-Benz on Main Street in the town of Bogota on the evening of Dec. 12, 2018, when she hit a man in the middle of the road.
In a police dashcam video, Arslanian is seen wearing a dress and fur coat, being questioned by police at the scene.
She says, “I didn’t do anything wrong” explaining that the man "jumped on my windshield."
Officers at the scene tell Arslanian her car is not drivable, and allow her to take items from it and leave the scene.
Arslanian, who was dating Menendez at the time of the crash, never was tested for drugs or alcohol at the time of the collision.
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Police determined that Richard Koop, 49, of Bogota had been jaywalking. Arslanian later was cleared of wrongdoing, and not charged or issued a summon.
Koop left behind a son, according to his obituary.
Menendez and Arslanian, who have since married, were recently indicted by a grand jury in New York in connection with a sprawling alleged bribery scheme.
The deadly incident and the senator’s future wife’s connection to it were not reported for years, but surfaced in the indictment.
Prosecutors claimed that Menendez needed a car after a December 2018 "accident" and was willing to interfere in the criminal prosecution of a New Jersey businessman in exchange for a $60,000 Mercedes convertible.
That "accident" lines up with the timing of Arslanian's fatal crash.
On Friday, the New Jersey attorney general's office announced that it is investigating whether authorities properly handled the investigation.
Koop’s sister told the New York Times the family had serious concerns over the investigation into the death.
“Definitely a lack of legal enthusiasm to take this case, definite lack of media coverage, and a lack of communication by the authorities of Bergen County,” Rosemarie Koop-Angelicola said. “We felt that the whole thing was very silently swept under the rug.”
The federal bribery trial for Menendez, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, and three other defendants is set to begin in May.
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