A judge, on Wednesday, sentenced an emotional former Senator Bob Menendez to 11 years in prison for a years-long bribery and corruption scheme that saw him rewarded with gold bars and stacks of cash.
Menendez had pleaded with US District Judge Sidney Stein for mercy, twice breaking down in tears.
“I have lost everything,” Menendez said, after recounting actions he said he had taken to help others while in the Senate, a job he was forced to resign after his conviction.
“For a man who spent his entire life in public service, every day I am awake is a punishment,” Menendez said.
Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 15 years for the New Jersey Democrat, which his attorneys called “vindictive and cruel” and “a life and death sentence” for the 71-year-old former chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Menendez was found guilty in July of extortion, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent after a sensational trial in which prosecutors charged that he accepted bribes — including cash and gold bars — to benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Two co-defendants were found guilty as well and were each sentenced Wednesday to several years in prison.
Menendez pleaded not guilty and has vowed to appeal the conviction. He has also been seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump after he was unable to get one from his former Senate colleague, former President Joe Biden, NBC News has reported.
Menendez’ attorneys have pleaded with US District Judge Sidney H. Stein to spare him jail time, noting he resigned from the Senate in August and contending he’s been punished enough.
“Senator Menendez has suffered extreme public shame and upheaval, and his finances and reputation are destroyed, likely for the rest of his life. He is the butt of late-night talk show jokes, and his name will live in infamy as the first politician in history to be convicted of being a foreign agent,” they argued in a court filing.
“He will live the rest of his days a social and political pariah, whether inside or outside of jail,” they added.
Menendez’s lawyers also contended that the judge should show mercy because of his “lifetime of good deeds,” including the work he’s done in the Senate, and that there was no evidence that “any of the acts alleged by the government harmed anyone.”
Prosecutors argued a lengthy prison sentence is a necessity given his position of power and the brazenness of the scheme.
“Menendez’s conduct may be the most serious for which a U.S. Senator has been convicted in the history of the Republic. Very few Senators have even been convicted of any criminal offense, and of those, most of the Senators engaging in bribery accepted amounts that are a fraction of what Menendez reaped,” their sentencing memo said.
“Serving in the Senate should have been its own reward. If Menendez was not corrupt, it would have been. It is not something Menendez needs to be rewarded for at all,” they added.
Menendez, his wife, Nadine, and three New Jersey businessmen were indicted in the scheme in 2023 following a lengthy investigation by the US attorney’s office in New York.
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