A threat? What threat? Ex-diplomat contradicts Menendez prosecution

NEWARK — On the stand Monday in U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's federal bribery trial, former U.S. ambassador William Brownfield told a different story than the one the government has been trying to write with Brownfield's own words.

Prosecutors have alleged Menendez, who they say had been accepting lavish bribes from his co-defendant Salomon Melgen, used his office to lobby Brownfield and others for the government's intervention in Melgen's contract dispute in the Dominican Republic.

In 2011, Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, had purchased a company named ICSSI, which held a cargo-screening contract for ports in the Dominican Republic. But the Dominican government had refused to honor the contract, prosecutors allege, leaving Melgen to seek help from his powerful friend.

But Monday's testimony by the former ambassador — until recently an assistant secretary of state overseeing the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement — could bolster the defense’s case that the New Jersey Democrat's conversations with the State Department were rooted in his genuine concern about port security and drug flow from the country, rather than the business dealings of a co-conspirator.

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