Prosecutors say the pile of cash in Menendez’s home did not come from a bank.

When Sen. Bob Menendez was indicted on corruption charges last year after investigators found $486,000 in cash hidden around his New Jersey home, he offered a simple and “outdated” explanation. It was his habit to withdraw cash from his personal savings account, a habit he learned from his Cuban immigrant parents.

But federal prosecutors in a filing late Friday offered new details that undermine Menendez’s claims. Some of the cash was wrapped in bands indicating that Menendez and his wife had withdrawn at least $10,000 at a time from a bank they “didn’t know had a savings account.” Prosecutors said this showed “the money was provided by another person.”

Lawyers for Mr. Menendez recently asked a judge to exclude much of the cash found in his home from evidence during the senator’s trial, which begins next month in New York City, citing evidence linking the money to the crime. He claimed that there was no such thing. Prosecutors’ charges Friday were in response to that request.

The issue of cash cuts echoes a key theme in the government’s case: that the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were living beyond their means and financed it with bribes.

The cash, along with gold bars and other valuables, were “products” of the bribery scheme, according to the federal indictment. Much of the cash found at the couple’s Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home was found in a bedroom closet, prosecutors said in a filing. Additional cash was found in a duffel bag in the office, a bag on a shelf above a coat rack in the basement, a pocket of a men’s jacket hanging on the coat rack, and footwear under the jacket. The government also announced that more than $70,000 was found in a safe deposit box managed by Nadine Menendez.

Democrat Bob Menendez, 70, and his wife accused the senator of using his political influence to obstruct a criminal investigation in New Jersey and accepting bribes in exchange for his willingness to support the governments of Egypt and Qatar. He has been indicted on suspicion of The Menendez couple and two New Jersey businessmen charged in the scheme have all pleaded not guilty.

Menendez, a former chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the two businessmen are scheduled to stand trial together starting May 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The senator has rejected widespread calls to resign and said he would seek re-election as an independent in November if acquitted.

Prosecutors say at least 10 cash envelopes found in a raid of the senator’s home and safe deposit box contained more than $80,000 and had fingerprints or DNA from one of the businessmen charged in the case. announced that it had been detected. Gold bars were also reportedly tied to the businessmen.

Bob Menendez’s attorney had no comment Saturday. But court documents say they seek to bar prosecutors from telling jurors only about cash that has no clear connection to the alleged co-conspirators. “The government should not be allowed to attempt to sway jurors by dramatically presenting valuables that have only a speculative connection to the crime charged,” they wrote.

Judge Sidney Stein ruled Thursday after her lawyer said Nadine Menendez, 57, has a newly diagnosed medical condition that will require surgical treatment and likely a long recovery. The court ruled that she should be tried separately. The judge tentatively set her trial date for July.

Last September, the U.S.-born senator linked at least some of the money found in his home to his family’s roots in Cuba in the years before Fidel Castro took power.

Over the course of 30 years, Menendez withdrew thousands of dollars in cash from his personal savings account and kept it for “emergencies.” He said the custom stems from “my family’s history of facing confiscation in Cuba.”

“It may seem old-fashioned, but these are money withdrawn from my personal savings account based on income I earned legally over 30 years,” he added.

The following month, Menendez elaborated in an interview with PBS, saying he had been withdrawing $400 in cash every week for “the majority” of 30 years.