Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) got some luck on Friday when the judge overseeing his case on corruption charges agreed to continue the trial will last from July 8, 2024, to March 31, 2025. That means the trial will not take place until long after the November election, in which Cuellar will face Republican Jay Furman, a Marine veteran.
The Laredo Democrat was indicted last month on charges of bribery, money laundering and illegal work for the Azerbaijani government. His trial was scheduled to begin in July but will now not begin until spring 2025, with a preliminary hearing in December. Jury selection is scheduled to begin March 31, 2025.
Both federal prosecutors and Cuellar’s team asked for a delay in the trial. Judge Lee Rosenthal, a veteran judge appointed by President George HW Bush, granted their request. The trial will take place in federal court in Houston.
Federal prosecutors accuse Cuellar of laundering bribes from the Azerbaijani government and a Mexican bank. In return, he is said to have pushed for laws that supported the bank and the Azerbaijani government, including laws related to Azerbaijan’s territorial dispute with neighboring Armenia.
It is not entirely clear from the briefs what the basis for the continuance of the trial was. The government’s request for a modern date refers to the defendants (Cuellar and his wife Imelda are both accused) requesting a July trial date postponement during the May 16 pretrial conference, but does not provide any reasons for the request. One can speculate, but given that the charges were not filed until April 30, a trial date postponement to next March is not unusual. (I think I’ve said this before, but I can count on one hand the number of cases that I remember actually going to trial on their original/initial trial date in nearly three decades as a trial lawyer – and still have a few fingers left.)
But the delay in the trial means Cuellar will not have to deal with spending time in court or being sentenced before the November election. And one should not necessarily expect the charges to hurt Cuellar’s chances. In November 2022, he will won the seat effortlesslyand secured his tenth term with a 13-point lead over Republican challenger Cassy Garcia, despite his home and office being raided by the FBI in January of that year.
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The charges against Cuellar are somewhat similar to those against Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who is currently on trial for corruption and bribery and is running as an independent to retain his long-time Senate seat in the November election.
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According to the Ministry of Justice:
An indictment was filed today in the Southern District of Texas against 68-year-old U.S. Congressman Enrique Roberto “Henry” Cuellar and his 67-year-old wife, Imelda Cuellar, both of Laredo, Texas. They are accused of participating in two schemes involving bribery, foreign influence peddling and money laundering. Congressman Cuellar and Imelda Cuellar made their initial appearances today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dena Palermo in Houston.
According to court documents, from at least December 2014 through at least November 2021, Congressmen Cuellar and Imelda Cuellar are alleged to have accepted approximately $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities: an oil and gas company wholly owned and controlled by the Azerbaijani government and a bank based in Mexico City. The bribes were allegedly laundered through a series of shell companies and middlemen under sham consulting contracts and diverted to shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, who performed little or no legitimate work under the contracts. In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar is alleged to have agreed to operate his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan. In return for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar is said to have agreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure senior officials in the U.S. executive branch on measures that would be beneficial to the bank.
If convicted, Cuellar faces several decades in prison.
