Former Michigan House speaker Lee Chatfield (R) and his wife “pleaded not guilty Thursday to financial charges arising from an investigation of how they spent money from unregulated political funds,” the AP reports.

They are accused of using money for personal travel, housing and other benefits when he was in office.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) unveiled 13 criminal charges against former House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R), “saying he had flagrantly misused nonprofit dollars to pay off his personal credit card and fund purchases at wineries and luxury retail stores,” the Detroit News reports.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) “is prepared to blame his wife at his bribery trial for withholding information from him about gifts they allegedly accepted from businessmen seeking favors, a newly unsealed court document shows,” Bloomberg reports.

“The revelation came Tuesday in a portion of a March court filing in which lawyers for the New Jersey Democrat asked a US judge to try him separately from his wife, Nadine. They are accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a car to help three businessmen and the Egyptian government. Menendez is also accused of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.”

“When Senator Robert Menendez was charged last year with corruption after investigators found $486,000 in cash stashed around his house in New Jersey, he offered a simple, ‘old-fashioned’ explanation: It had been his custom to withdraw cash from a personal savings account to keep at home, a habit he learned from his Cuban immigrant parents,” the New York Times reports.

“But federal prosecutors, in papers filed late Friday, presented fresh details that they suggested undercut Mr. Menendez’s claim. Some of the cash was wrapped in bands showing it had been withdrawn, at least $10,000 at a time, from a bank where Mr. Menendez and his wife ‘had no known depository account.'”

“This, prosecutors said, indicated ‘that the money had been provided to them by another person.'”

“Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial will start in May — without his wife,” Politico reports.

“A federal judge on Thursday refused to delay the trial because of health issues facing Nadine Menendez, who asked to postpone the trial because of an unspecified ‘serious medical condition.'”

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) “pleaded not guilty Monday to obstruction charges contained in a new federal indictment filed in Manhattan that added to the bribery and corruption charges he already faced,” ABC News reports.

“A federal appeals court on Friday revived corruption charges against former Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin of New York, saying prosecutors had sufficiently demonstrated a plan to funnel $50,000 in state money to a now-deceased developer in exchange for campaign contributions,” the New York Times reports.

“Jose Uribe, a former New Jersey insurance broker charged in what prosecutors have described as a broad bribery scheme involving Sen. Robert Menendez, pleaded guilty on Friday in Manhattan,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Uribe had been accused of providing Nadine Menendez, the senator’s wife, with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Mr. Menendez’s efforts to intercede in an insurance-fraud investigation in New Jersey.”

As federal prosecutors were preparing to rest their case in the corruption trial of former Illinois state Sen. Sam McCann (R), the one-time gubernatorial candidate had a change of heart, Capitol News Illinois reports.

McCann reversed his position of innocence he’s held since being indicted three years ago and plead guilty on all counts.

New York Times Magazine: “A Republican state lawmaker devised a bribery scheme that ended in a trial and a death — and showed why corruption has become harder to prosecute.”

“Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were both charged last fall in a broad federal corruption case in which they were accused of accepting cash and gold bribes,” the New York Times reports.

“Now their marriage itself is the centerpiece of a new legal argument.”

“Both Mr. and Ms. Menendez are seeking to split their case and have separate trials.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) — “already accused of using his political influence to benefit Egypt — was newly charged on Tuesday with using his power to help the government of Qatar,” the New York Times report.

“Mr. Menendez was charged by federal prosecutors with accepting bribes from Fred Daibes, a prominent New Jersey developer, in exchange for the senator’s help securing financial backing from an investment fund with ties to the Qatari government.”