Former New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday after being found guilty on 16 federal charges last year in what prosecutors called a coordinated years-long bribery and conspiracy scheme.
The sentence capped the extraordinary downfall of a once-powerful lawmaker.
“I have lost everything,” Menendez said, pleading with U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for mercy. “For a man who spent his entire life in public service, every day I am awake is a punishment.”
“I ask you to temper your sword of justice with the mercy of a lifetime of duty,” he added.
Menendez was found guilty on charges including extortion, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice, acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, bribery, and conspiracy. The jury deliberated for more than 12 hours over the course of three days. The trial lasted nine weeks.
The verdict made Menendez the seventh sitting U.S. senator to be convicted of a federal crime. He is also the first senator to be charged with acting as a foreign agent and the first to be indicted in separate bribery cases. His first prosecution, in 2017, resulted in a mistrial after jurors could not come to a unanimous verdict.
Menendez’s lawyer, Adam Fee, argued Wednesday that the disgraced 71-year-old lawmaker deserved credit for his nearly five decades of public service.
“For nearly 50 years, he’s been a tireless servant of his community, his state, and his country,” Fee said. “Despite his decades of service, he is known more widely as ‘Gold Bar Bob.’”
Menendez was accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars, a luxury convertible, furniture, and 13 gold bars in exchange for steering aid to Egypt, setting up a lucrative halal meat monopoly, and disrupting criminal investigations on behalf of his friends and family.
The most serious charges of extortion and wire fraud carried a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Menendez faced a maximum of 222 years in prison for all 16 charges.
The 11-year sentence Menendez received was four years shy of the 15 prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office asked the court to impose.
“Menendez, who swore an oath to represent the United States and the State of New Jersey, instead put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes, ” prosecutors wrote in a Jan. 9 court filing.
Stein told Menendez during sentencing that he had “lost” his way.
“You were successful, powerful, and you stood at the apex of our political system,” he said. “Somewhere along the way, I don’t know where it was, you lost your way.”
Menendez, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted alongside two New Jersey businessmen, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana. Stein sentenced Daibes, a real estate developer, to seven years in prison and a $1.75 million fine. Hana, who ran a halal meat monopoly, was sentenced to eight years and a $1.3 million fine.
Charged alongside them was Menendez’s wife, Nadine. Her trial was delayed due to medical reasons. Prosecutors alleged she was the go-between who set up meetings and collected the bribes. Much of Menendez’s defense centered on blaming his wife. She will be tried in March.
Outside the Manhattan courthouse, the former senator slammed prosecutors, claiming they had “no accountability as to who or how or what happened.” He also criticized the plea deal offered to Jose Uribe, the government’s star witness in the trial.
Uribe testified he bribed Menendez by giving his wife a Mercedes-Benz convertible on the condition that the then-sitting senator would “stop and kill” any criminal investigation looking into his company.
“Only in the Southern District of New York would you allow a witness to walk away from 10 criminal charges including defrauding the United States government so they can get him to lie on the stand,” Menendez said. “Welcome to the Southern District of New York. The Wild West of political prosecution.”
He added that President Donald Trump, who has had his own interaction with prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, was “right.”
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“President Trump is right,” Menendez said. “This process is political and corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up this cesspool and restores integrity to the system.”
Menendez is the seventh U.S. senator to be convicted of a federal crime. He is also the first senator to be charged with acting as a foreign agent and the first to be indicted in separate bribery cases. His first prosecution, in 2017, resulted in a mistrial after jurors could not come to a unanimous verdict.
