Former Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in federal jail Wednesday after the once-powerful New Jersey Democrat traded on his political clout in alternate for gold bars, money and a luxurious automobile.
U.S. District Decide Sidney Stein handed down the jail time period to a teary-eyed Menendez, 71, in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday, roughly seven months after he was discovered responsible of taking bribes and appearing as a international agent for the Egyptian authorities.
“You had been profitable, {powerful}, you stood on the apex of our political system,” the decide stated. ”Someplace alongside the best way, and I don’t know when it was, you misplaced your manner and dealing for the general public good turned working in your good.”
Menendez was emotional as he spoke to Decide Stein earlier than the sentencing, saying he was “removed from an ideal man” however he had “completed way more good than unhealthy.” He and his attorneys, citing the previous lawmaker’s a long time of public service, pleaded for leniency.
Decide Stein’s 11-year jail time period was a center floor between the 15 years prosecutors had been searching for and the utmost of eight years sought by Menendez’s protection crew.
Menendez resigned from the Senate following his conviction final July, although his affect in Congress primarily vanished as soon as he was pressured to surrender his chairmanship of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee in fall 2023.
Menendez’s conviction stems from help he supplied to the Egyptian authorities, together with ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators about sending $300 million in navy help to the nation.
For his companies, prosecutors stated Menendez collected a “hoard of bribes.” Amongst these had been $480,000 in free money and $150,000 in gold bars discovered throughout a 2022 raid at his New Jersey dwelling.
Menendez was additionally bribed into making an attempt to persuade a federal prosecutor to ease up on a financial institution fraud case in opposition to Fred Daibes, a politically related New Jersey actual property developer.
Jose Uribe, one other businessman who testified at Menendez’s trial, stated he helped Menendez’s spouse Nadine get a Mercedes-Benz after the previous senator tried to strain a state prosecutor to drop a legal probe into the businessman’s associates.
Daibes, the New Jersey actual property developer who bribed Menendez, obtained a seven-year jail sentence.
Uribe pleaded responsible to bribery-related fees and can face sentencing in April.
Nadine Menendez will go to trial in March on lots of the identical bribery fees as her husband.
