A choose on Monday delayed former Sen. Bob Menendez’s (D-N.J.) sentencing in his federal corruption case by three months, pushing any prison punishment into 2025.
In a quick order, U.S. District Choose Sidney Stein rescheduled Menendez’s sentencing to Jan. 29. The disgraced New Jersey Democrat was initially set to be sentenced on Oct. 29.
Menendez was convicted in July on all 16 counts he confronted, from accepting luxurious bribes in change for his political clout to appearing as a overseas agent of Egypt. As soon as chair of the highly effective Senate Overseas Relations Committee, he’s now staring down a long time in jail.
Forward of Menendez’s sentencing, a number of pals wrote letters to the choose urging him to weigh the previous senator’s a long time of public service when deciding his sentence and asking for a lenient punishment.
“Surely the way he has uplifted his community and each individual whose life Bob has improved must count for something to help minimize the consequences which you have the power to impose,” Joan Dublin, president of the Metropolitan Household Well being Community in Jersey Metropolis, wrote in one of many letters.
Thus far, none of Menendez’s colleagues within the Senate have written letters in his help that had been made public in court docket filings.
Regardless of resigning from the Senate in August, Menendez has maintained his innocence and pleaded not responsible. He has vowed to attraction the conviction.
Two New Jersey businessmen who had been convicted alongside Menendez for buying and selling the bribes of money, gold bars and different presents for the then-senator’s energy at the moment are additionally scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 29. A 3rd who pleaded responsible earlier than the trial started shall be sentenced in April.
Menendez’s spouse, Nadine, was charged alongside the senator and businessmen however has not but gone to trial as a result of a breast most cancers prognosis. Although no trial date has formally been set, Stein ordered Nadine Menendez’s lawyer and the federal government to maintain their trial calendars clear for January and February. A pre-trial convention is scheduled for Dec. 9.
