Former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in jail for buying and selling bribes for political favors.
Federal prosecutors levied allegations of bribery, extortion and appearing as a international agent towards Menendez, then chair of the highly effective Senate International Relations Committee, final fall.
This summer season, he grew to become the primary public official ever convicted of appearing as a international agent whereas in workplace.
A New York jury discovered the senator and his spouse, Nadine Menendez, accepted tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} in money, gold bars and luxurious automobiles from three New Jersey businessmen.
In alternate, the senator protected the halal meat certification monopoly of one of many businessmen, Wael Hana, in alternate for profitable kickbacks and intervened in separate prison circumstances involving the opposite two males, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.
Earlier than the decide handed down his sentence Wednesday, Menendez tearfully requested for leniency over his many years of public service.
“You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence,” the ex-senator advised U.S. District Decide Sidney H. Stein, based on the Related Press.
Menendez’s attorneys argued that the case made him a “national punchline,” earning him the nickname “gold bar Bob,” which ought to function punishment in its personal proper. However the decide was not satisfied.
“You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political system,” Stein stated, based on the AP. ”Someplace alongside the best way, and I don’t know when it was, you misplaced your means and dealing for the general public good grew to become working on your good.”
Menendez was ordered to report back to jail by June 6.
Hana was additionally sentenced Wednesday to only over eight years in jail and Daibes to a seven-year jail time period.
Uribe, who pleaded responsible earlier than dealing with trial, is about to be sentenced in June. Nadine Menendez’s trial has been postponed a number of occasions because of ongoing breast most cancers therapy and is now scheduled to start in March.
Because the highly effective chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, Menendez signed off on a number of multimillion-dollar weapons gross sales to Egypt, which he repeatedly requested his spouse to relay to the businessmen, who then handed on the intel to Egyptian officers, between 2018 and 2022.
Following a nine-week trial, Menendez was discovered responsible on all 16 counts he confronted. He quickly after resigned from Congress.
Federal prosecutors sought a 15-year jail time period for Menendez, whose conduct they stated constituted an “extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of the public trust.”
“The defendants’ crimes amount to an extraordinary attempt, at the highest levels of the legislative branch, to corrupt the nation’s core sovereign powers over foreign relations and law enforcement,” the federal government wrote in its sentencing memorandum.
Nevertheless, the advice is a downward departure from federal sentencing tips, which instructed a 24-to-30-year jail time period. Prosecutors stated the request for a decrease — albeit nonetheless vital — sentence was “based principally” on Menendez’s age.
The sentencing got here on the heels of the decide’s resolution to not toss Menendez’s corruption conviction or grant a brand new trial, regardless of jurors getting access to trial displays with out correct redactions throughout their deliberations.
Menendez’s lawyer beforehand requested a jail time period of not more than two years, however after the ex-senator’s co-defendants had been sentenced to seven and eight years, respectively, he modified his request to a most of eight years.
Although the decide decided there was an “infinitesimal chance” the jurors even considered the mistakenly despatched supplies, the previous senator has repeatedly claimed prosecutorial misconduct and vowed to enchantment.
The Related Press contributed.
Up to date at 4:09 pm EST.
