At former Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption trial last year, his defense team cast him as an unwitting pawn in a global bribery scheme orchestrated by his wife, Nadine Menendez, that netted the couple nearly $1 million in gold bars, cash, and other valuables.

Nadine Menendez and her prison-bound husband — former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez — were “partners in crime," a prosecutor told a jury Monday as opening statements began in her trial over allegations that the power couple accepted bribes of cash and gold bars.

But a lawyer for Ms. Menendez, the wife of former Senator Robert Menendez, told jurors at the start of her bribery trial that she lacked “knowledge and intent.”