Sen. Bob Menendez’s wife sold $400K in gold bars months before office said he was facing federal probe

Senator Bob Menendez’s new wife cashed in up to $400,000 worth of gold bars — despite having faced foreclosure just three years earlier.

The sale, last spring, was months before his office publicly admitted that the New Jersey Democrat was facing a new federal investigation.

Nadine Arslanian, 56, sold the gold between April 7, 2022 and June 16, 2022, according to the senator’s annual public disclosures. It is equivalent to as much as 13 pounds of pure gold.

The sale was a remarkable financial turnaround for Arslanian, who had reportedly been struggling financially, even facing foreclosure on her home, before she married Menendez in 2020.

But the couple now find themselves at the center of an FBI probe, which began within months of their relationship beginning.

Manhattan federal prosecutors want to know if the senator or his wife received unreported luxury gifts, including a car and a Washington apartment, in return for political favors, according to reports.

The investigation is the second time the senator has been probed by federal authorities over allegations of corruption. A long-running New Jersey state investigation ended in 2011 with no charges filed.

Menendez, 69, was indicted in 2015 after prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Unit accused him of accepting lavish bribes from Palm Beach ophthalmologist and political benefactor Dr. Salomon Melgen.

Among the allegations was that the senator directed members of his staff to obtain visas for Melgen’s girlfriends, who hailed from Brazil, Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic.

The bribery case against the Garden State Senator who was first elected in 2006 ended in a mistrial two years later, after the 12-person jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked.

Federal prosecutors withdrew the charges in 2017 before a retrial, after the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of public corruption.

In December of the following year, he met Arslanian in an IHOP in Union City, where he had been mayor, starting a whirlwind romance, the couple told the New York Times’ “Vows” column.

They were introduced over pancakes, and, said Arslanian, “He was very intelligent and had a great sense of humor, and he was very, very hot.”

In the next five months, they visited four continents, and in October, she was his partner on a Congressional delegation visit to India.

Menendez, a divorcé, orchestrated an elaborate proposal: As Arslanian sat in front of the Taj Mahal, on what he said was the same seat that Princess Diana used when her marriage was on the rocks in 1992, he sang “Never Enough” from the 2017 film “The Greatest Showman,” and dropped to one knee with a ring.

His fiancée, however, was reportedly wrestling with financial problems, the New York Times reported. In 2014, after having trouble paying the $1,897 monthly mortgage on the Bergen County home she now shares with Menendez, she enrolled in a federal program to help her manage her costs, according to the newspaper.

But by the middle of 2019, she couldn’t make the lower payments and the mortgage company began foreclosure proceedings on her house.

Just as the foreclosure began, Arslanian founded her own consulting business — Strategic International Business Consultants LLC — which is run out of her home address.

The company has no online footprint, and it’s not clear who its clients are. Its incorporation was handled by longtime Menendez friend Donald Scarinci.

The couple married in October 2020 in a small ceremony at the Holy Martyrs Armenian Church in Bayside, Queens. Arslanian is Lebanese-born and of Armenian descent.

She told a podcast in 2020 that she encouraged Menendez to push for the recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide, which the Senate passed in 2019.

As a senator Menendez is required to declare assets he or his wife own valued at more than $1,000. He does not have to declare their origin.

For the first year of their marriage, he declared that she had checking and savings accounts with a maximum value of $117,000.

It wasn’t until a month before she cashed in the gold — on March 16, 2022 — that Menendez filed an amendment to the 2020 disclosure revealing Arslanian had up to $250,000 in gold bars, Senate filings show.

And in June this year, he revealed the sales in four separate tranches, adding up to a total value of up to $400,000.

A spokeswoman for Senator Menendez told The Post Thursday that “the Senator’s financial disclosure forms were filed in accordance with all deadlines and requirements.” She refused comment on the federal investigation.

Arslanian’s attorney David Schertler did not return an email from The Post seeking comment Wednesday. Schertler’s Washington, DC firm received $48,000 in a payment for “legal services” from Menendez for Senate in February, according to FEC filings.

Last month, Menendez, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, established the Menendez Legal Defense Fund in order to help pay for his teams of attorneys, The Post can reveal.

Between January and April of this year, Menendez for Senate spent nearly $187,000 on “legal services” to firms in Chicago and Washington DC, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Among the law firms is the Elias Law Group, headed by prominent elections lawyer Marc Elias, a longtime advisor to the Democratic National Committee before they parted ways in April, according to reports.

Menendez’s recent federal financial disclosures show that Arslanian earned income from the company last year.

The senator’s disclosure forms also showed she worked for Fusion Diagnostics Laboratories, a New Jersey medical testing company. 

Menendez, is scheduled to become an honorary citizen of Paphos, a coastal city in Cyprus on Friday, in recognition of his support of human rights in the region, according to a statement from the Paphos city council.