NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — The trial of Sen. Bob Menendez was placed on a weeklong recess Tuesday after the federal court jury members got stuck in an elevator during their break.

Judge Sidney H. Stein said jurors were trapped in an elevator for several minutes during what was supposed to be a 10-minute late-afternoon break that lasted almost a half hour.

The elevator breakdown came as jurors moved between floors to a backup assembly room because carpeting in their usual assembly room just outside the courtroom was found to be soaked on Monday after somebody left sink faucets on over the weekend.

As jurors finally left for the day, Stein humorously warned them: “Don't all get into one elevator.”

The mishap came on a day when prosecutors slowly tried to build their case against the Democratic senator and and his two co-defendants — two New Jersey businessmen who the government claims paid him bribes consisting of gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and a car.

Lawyers for Menendez, 70, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and the businessmen say their clients are not guilty.

After his arrest last fall, Menendez was forced to step down as as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, though he has resisted calls for him to leave the Senate.

Besides bribery, extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice, Menendez is also charged with acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.

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