New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez's wife-to-be, Nadine Arslanian, was reportedly helped by a retired top policeman in leaving the scene of a fatal car crash without undergoing a sobriety test or surrendering her phone.
The retired officer, Michael Mordaga, who previously served as the director of Hackensack Police and chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, arrived at the scene within minutes after Arslanian crashed her black Mercedes into Richard Koop in Bogota, New Jersey, in December 2018.
According to the New York Post, Mordaga, 66, assisted Arslanian in leaving behind her totaled car and retrieving her belongings from it after speaking with the patrolman handling the crash. Dashcam footage and 911 recordings do not show Arslanian expressing concern for the victim, but they do reveal her refusal to allow her cellphone to be searched.
The recordings also suggest that she did not call 911 until officers were already present at the scene, and even then, she provided them with the wrong location for the crash.
A witness claimed that Arslanian informed the police that she intended to call someone for help. At the time of the crash, Arslanian was dating both Menendez and her long-term boyfriend, Douglas Anton, who later represented R. Kelly in his sex trafficking trial. The fatal collision on December 12, 2018, resulted in Arslanian and Menendez facing bribery and corruption charges, which they both deny.
It was only recently, with the release of dashcam footage and other records by the Bogota Police Department to NorthJersey.com, that Arslanian's role in Koop's death came to light. Arslanian told the police that she did not see Koop, but the force of the collision flung his body to the curb just steps away from his own house on East Main Street in Bogota before crashing into a parked car.
Sheri Breen, an attorney representing Koop's estate, stated that footage from a nearby business showed Arslanian "moving her car around his body as he was lying in the road and she did not come to his aid or even check on him." Records also indicate that Arslanian was not the first person to call 911 after the crash, which occurred at 7:35 p.m., as the dispatcher informed her that an officer was already at the scene. Arslanian told the dispatcher that she was in "Teaneck," a town bordering Bogota.
Arslanian, standing in the road wearing a fur coat and a short dress, initially agreed to allow the police to search her phone but later requested an attorney, stating that she did not want to say anything that could be misconstrued. She asked, "Why was the guy standing in the middle of the road? I didn't do anything wrong." In the footage, she is heard asking an officer to retrieve something that had been placed "in the ambulance."
Shortly thereafter, the dashcam footage captures a conversation between an off-camera individual and Mordaga, who confirms that he is retired from the Hackensack Police Department. Mordaga states that he does not know Arslanian personally but that he was asked by a friend to assist her because her friend had been involved in a car accident. The "buddy's wife" mentioned in the conversation appears to be an unnamed friend who helped Arslanian retrieve her belongings from the car.
During the conversation, Mordaga asks about the police's plans to provide a statement to the prosecutor's office. The patrolman informs him that they do not currently plan to do so and that Arslanian is free to retrieve her belongings from her car. Consequently, Arslanian left the scene without receiving a summons.
Sergio Uribe, the owner of the parked car that Arslanian struck, expressed surprise that she was allowed to leave without being arrested. He recalled saying, "That woman is just allowed to leave? She's not being arrested or anything?" Arslanian's attorney declined to comment on the matter.
Arslanian, 56, and Menendez, 69, were indicted last month in Manhattan federal court, along with three others, for their involvement in an alleged bribery scheme. Prosecutors claim that the couple had amassed gold bullion, nearly $500,000 in cash, and a new Mercedes convertible at their home.
Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian-American businessman also implicated in the bribery scheme, about the loss of her car a month after the crash. Prosecutors allege that Hana subsequently provided her with a 2019 Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible worth $60,000.
The New York Post attempted to contact Mordaga, but he declined to comment and directed all inquiries to the Bogota Police Department, which did not respond to the request for comment. Mordaga's attorney also did not provide a comment.
Mordaga himself has faced accusations in the past. He was accused of informing on Frank Lagano, a reputed member of the Lucchese crime family, which allegedly led to Lagano's execution in the parking lot of an East Brunswick diner that Mordaga co-owned in 2007.
Although the dead man's family lost a federal lawsuit against Mordaga and the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office earlier this year, they have since appealed the decision.
Mordaga was also implicated in another federal complaint, which alleged that he failed to intervene in a domestic violence incident involving two married police officers from the Hackensack Police Department in 2015 when he was still in charge. The lawsuit was settled in 2017, and the couple went on to win $1 million in a Powerball lottery in 2018.
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