Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for selling his once-considerable clout in Washington for gold bars, a luxury car and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes.
Prosecutors have asked a federal judge to give the Democrat 15 years behind bars for crimes that include acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.
Menendez's lawyers said he deserved less than two years in prison, citing his decades of public service and a life largely well-lived after the son of Cuban immigrants rose from poverty to become “the epitome of the American Dream.”
In the morning, Judge Sidney H. Stein signaled that a stiffer penalty was likely on the way,
Stein gave substantial prison terms to two New Jersey businessmen convicted of paying bribes to the senator. Fred Daibes, a real estate developer, got seven years and a $1.75 million fine. Wael Hana, an entrepreneur, got eight years a $1.25 million fine and was ordered to forfeit $125,000.
Prior to the announcement of his sentence, Daibes, 67, tearfully told Stein the jury verdict had left him “borderline suicidal,” and requested leniency so that he could care for his 30-year-old autistic son.
Hana told the judge, “I am an innocent man."
"I never bribed Senator Menendez or asked his office for influence.”
The judge, though, said the jury's verdict was “very, very substantial."
When time came to announce Menendez's sentence Wednesday afternoon, Stein addressed the former senator saying in part: "You lost your senate seat, your chairmanship, and your good name.”
“At the end of the day, what’s important is the good name we try to leave behind to our children and grandchildren. And somewhere along the way you became a corrupt politician,” Stein went on to say.
Menendez sobs in court
Prior to learning his sentencing fate, Menendez sobbed when addressing the court. He talked about being a Cuban immigrant and all his political accomplishment working for his constituents.
At various points during his testimony, Menendez became emotional, especially when talking about all his accomplishments. He sobbed when he spoke about being the first Hispanic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: calling it "a dream come true."
Describing himself as a man who has dedicated his life to others, a father and grandfather, Menendez said: "Judge other than that I have lost everything I have cared about. Every day I am awake is a punch."
"I am far from a perfect man. In more than a half century of service, I ask you temper your sword,” Menendez continued.
One of the businessmen convicted of bribing NJ Sen. Bob Menendez with cash and gold bars is in plea talks in a separate bank fraud case. An attorney for Fred Daibes told a federal judge today that he hopes to have a plea deal done by August to avoid a trial on bank fraud related counts.
THE BREAKDOWN: WHAT WAS THE FORMER SENATOR CONVICTED OF?
Menendez resigned from the Senate after his conviction last year, though he lost much of his power in fall 2023 when the charges against him were revealed and he was forced to surrender his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The trial traced Menendez’s dealings with Egyptian officials and his quest to aid three men who showered him with lucrative gifts found during a 2022 raid on the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home he shared with his wife, Nadine.
FBI agents who searched the house found $480,000 in cash, some of it stuffed inside boots and the pockets of clothing hung in the couple's closets. They also seized gold bars worth an estimated $150,000.
Prosecutors said Menendez had “put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes,” including by serving Egypt’s interests as he worked to protect a meat certification monopoly Hana had established with the Egyptian government.
Among other things, Menendez provided Egyptian officials with information about the staff at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and ghostwrote a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in military aid to Egypt.
Prosecutors said that for other bribes, Menendez attempted to persuade a federal prosecutor in New Jersey to go easy on Daibes, a politically influential real estate developer accused of bank fraud.
And at the trial, another businessman, Jose Uribe, testified that he helped Nadine Menendez get a Mercedes-Benz convertible after the senator sought to pressure state prosecutors to drop criminal probes of his associates.
The jury’s verdict followed a nine-week trial in which prosecutors said the Democrat abused the power of his office to protect allies from criminal investigations and enrich associates, including his wife, through acts that included meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials and helping that country access millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.
Menendez has insisted that he is innocent of any crime, saying repeatedly that his interactions with Egyptian officials were normal for the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, and that he always put American interests first. He denied taking any bribes and said the gold bars belonged to his wife.
Nadine Menendez faces trial in March on many of the same charges as her husband after spending the last year battling breast cancer.
Prosecutors said in a court filing that long prison terms are a warranted punishment “for this extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of the public trust.”
“The defendants engaged, for years, in a corruption and foreign influence scheme of stunning brazenness, breadth, and duration, resulting in exceptionally grave abuses of power at the highest levels of the Legislative Branch of the United States Government," they wrote.
Menendez’s lawyers, in a presentence submission, said he had already suffered greatly.
“Unsurprisingly, Senator Menendez’s conviction has rendered him a national punchline and stripped him of every conceivable personal, professional, and financial benefit,” his lawyers wrote. “Bob is now 71, with his long-built reputation in tatters. He has suffered financial and professional ruin."
New Jersey's senior senator was found guilty of all 16 counts he faced in the corruption trial, convicted of bribery, conspiracy, extortion, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent — the latter of which prosecutors may have been most serious. The two co-defendants were also found guilty. NBC New York's Jonathan Diesnt and Erica Byfield report.
THE AFTERMATH OF HIS CONVICTION
Menendez's law license has been suspended and will be revoked if his conviction stands. His state pension is in jeopardy. His name has already been stripped from an elementary school in New Jersey.
“His once broad circle of friends and political allies have largely disappeared,” his lawyers said. “While all defendants suffer inevitable personal and professional consequences if convicted of serious federal crimes, Senator Menendez in many important respects has already been punished relatively more harshly due to his position.”
In court papers, the lawyers described how Menendez devoted much of his life to his country and his community after he was scarred by the early loss of his father, who killed himself when Menendez was 23 after he was unable to pay off gambling debts.
They described a 50-year history of public service in heroic terms, tracing a career in which Menendez was mayor of Union City, New Jersey, a state lawmaker, a member of the U.S. House and then a senator from 2006 to 2024.
Yet he also had the distinction of being the only U.S. senator indicted twice.
In 2015, he was charged with selling his influence to a wealthy Florida eye doctor and entrepreneur who prosecutors said lavished him with luxury vacations and campaign contributions. But the jury in that case couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. Federal prosecutors dropped the case rather than put him on trial again.
