Senator Bob Menendez: “Intergenerational trauma” made him hoard cash and gold

CATEGORY: COURTS

Senator Bob Menendez, (D) New Jersey

Source: New York Post
Read time: 2.3 minutes
 
Update July 16, 2024: Sen. Menendez was found guilty of all 16 counts.

This Happened
On May 3, 2024, multiple news outlets reported that attorneys for Sen. Bob Menendez wished to argue that the senator is afflicted with “intergenerational trauma” which created a mental condition that causes him to stockpile his valuables at home. Menendez is scheduled to go to trial next week on charges that he accepted bribes in the form of cash and gifts in exchange for his political influence.
Who Did This?
Bob Menendez is serving his third term as a senator from New Jersey. He was charged in 2023 with accepting bribes in exchange for his political influence. He had been charged on a different bribery matter in 2015 but a jury could not reach a verdict. He is the first sitting senator to be charged on two unrelated criminal matters.
The attorneys for Menendez wrote a letter to the judge as part of their legal strategy to present evidence of his intergenerational trauma. The strategy became known only because the letter was made public by government prosecutors. 
Karen Rosenbaum, M.D. was named as the expert who would testify to the claims. Rosenbaum, who has a private practice in Manhattan, completed a forensic psychiatry fellowship, and has testified in other cases. She lists on her personal website that she holds a Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery Certification from Harvard University. On Rosenbaum’s personal blog site, she has authored posts favorable to Black Lives Matter and the concept of structural racism in America.

Karen Rosenbaum, M.D., forensic psychiatrist

Prosecutors stated that if the judge allows this strategy, they must be allowed to have their own psychiatrist evaluate Menendez.​
The Claim
When investigators searched Menendez’s home in June 2022, they found $480,000 in cash—much of it stashed in clothing and closets—and 13 gold bars. The claim of intergenerational trauma appears to be a legal strategy to provide an innocent explanation of the stashed valuables.
The letter to the judge reportedly stated that Dr. Rosenbaum would explain that intergenerational trauma was caused by his parents being immigrants from Cuba; their funds were taken by the Cuban government and they were left with little cash that they had stashed in their home. Since Menendez was born in New York City, it’s not clear if Menendez observed his parents stash cash in their home while growing up in America or if he learned of it from stories about Cuba.
In addition, his behavior of stashing valuables was a coping mechanism that developed after his father, a compulsive gambler, committed suicide after Menendez stopped paying his father's gambling debts. It was not reported when his father died.
Despite these mental health problems, the letter stated that Menendez never received treatment.
 
Analysis
Intergenerational trauma is neither an accepted diagnosis nor a validated type of trauma. The theory of intergenerational transmission of trauma, however, is immensely popular despite being controversial and unproven. The theories of how transmission occurs are fuzzy but tend to be of two main types. One type posits that thoughts and behaviors pass from one unconscious mind (the parent) to another unconscious mind (the child) by repetition. Children observe or somehow intuit parental psychodynamics. The mechanism of how that happens, whether it be psychodynamic or physiological in nature, is unproven.
A second type is a physiobiological mechanism that involves epigenetics. As parents engage in maladaptive behaviors (e.g., stashing cash) with concurrent psychological stress, abnormal methylation of their DNA occurs, causing changes in gene expression. These methylations somehow get physically transmitted to children. This is highly controversial, and seems impossible, because only chromosomes, not transitory methylations, are passed from parent to child in sexual reproduction.
Despite the mysterious and missing details about intergenerational transmission of trauma, or probably because of them, the theory has often been used to explain many perceived social injustices for advocacy movements.
 
Why Is This Happening?
Blaming criminal behavior on trauma historically has been a frequent tactic for defendants in desperate legal situations. Intergenerational transmission of trauma is a relatively new twist on that tactic.
 
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