Embattled Democratic New Jersey senator Bob Menendez has hired a psychiatrist who testified for a double child murderer to help his corruption trial defense, The Post has learned.
Menendez, who has been charged with 18 counts of corruption and bribery, paid Karen Rosenbaum, a forensic psychiatrist, $4,200 last month in fees as an “expert witness,” newly released filings from his legal defense fund show.
The filing is the first hint at how Menendez will try to defend himself when he goes on trial at federal court in Manhattan on May 6, charged with selling his office to foreign governments and receiving gold bars and cash in return.
It also reveals that the Menendez Legal Defense Fund doled out $4,400 to Michigan-based lab Riley, Welch, LaPorte Associates that specializes in handwriting analysis, among other forensic examinations, for “document review.”
Rosenbaum was an expert witness in the defense of Yoseyln Ortega, the nanny who went on trial in Manhattan in 2018 for the grisly 2012 slaying of her two young charges — Alicia Krim, 6 and her brother Leo, 2 — at their Upper West Side home.
During four days of cross-examination, Rosenbaum testified that Ortega, who stabbed both children to death in the bathtub, could not be held accountable for the horrific crimes because she was in a state of psychosis, believing that Satan had ordered her to kill the children.
“It’s my opinion that she has no memory, that she loves the children, that she didn’t want to hurt anyone. She feels God is going to save her,” Rosenbaum said in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Ortega was convicted of the murders, and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
It is unclear exactly what she will testify to in Menendez’s trial. Robert Luskin, a lawyer representing Menendez, did not return a request for comment Tuesday. Rosenbaum did not return an email seeking comment.
Because he is still a senator, Menendez has to detail cash he has received for his legal defense fund and how it is spent under Congressional rules.
The legal filing shows that the largest expenditure of $100,000 went to the Washington, DC law firm Jones Day for “legal services” in February.
Menendez added Jones Day partner Yaakov Roth to his legal team. Roth represented defendant Bridget Kelly, an aide to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the “Bridgegate” case and Joseph Percoco, an aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who was convicted of fraud. Both convictions were overturned.
The Menendez Legal Defense Fund took in $188,925 between January and the end of March, filings show. It doled out $172, 555 in payments to political consultants and lawyers.
Among the highest contributors to the fund was Dennis Mehiel, a Westchester-based corrugated cardboard mogul and Democratic donor, who donated $10,000 in January, filings show.
Menendez, 70, was charged last year along with his wife Nadine Arslanian, 57, and three co-defendants, of accepting hundreds of thousands in cash and gold bars in exchange for political favors.
They were also charged with conspiracy to act as a foreign agent for Egypt and Qatar.
One of the three co-defendants has pleaded guilty but the remaining four vigorously deny the charges. Menendez claims that the gold bars belonged to his wife’s late mother.
Arslanian will be tried separately from her husband after saying she was suffering from a “serious medical condition” that would require surgery within four to six weeks.
