Former senator of New Jersey Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribery scheme

Former Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison Wednesday after the once-powerful New Jersey Democrat traded on his political clout in exchange for gold bars, cash and a luxury car.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein handed down the prison term to a teary-eyed Menendez, 71, in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday, roughly seven months after he was found guilty of taking bribes and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government.

“You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political system,” the judge said. ”Somewhere along the way, and I don’t know when it was, you lost your way and working for the public good became working for your good.”

Menendez was emotional as he spoke to Judge Stein before the sentencing, saying he was “far from a perfect man” but he had “done far more good than bad.” He and his attorneys, citing the former lawmaker’s decades of public service, pleaded for leniency.

Judge Stein’s 11-year prison term was a middle ground between the 15 years prosecutors were seeking and the maximum of eight years sought by Menendez’s defense team.

Menendez resigned from the Senate following his conviction last July, though his influence in Congress essentially vanished once he was forced to give up his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in fall 2023.

Menendez’s conviction stems from assistance he provided to the Egyptian government, including ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators about sending $300 million in military aid to the nation.

For his services, prosecutors said Menendez collected a “hoard of bribes.” Among those were $480,000 in loose cash and $150,000 in gold bars found during a 2022 raid at his New Jersey home.

Menendez was also bribed into trying to convince a federal prosecutor to ease up on a bank fraud case against Fred Daibes, a politically connected New Jersey real estate developer.

Jose Uribe, another businessman who testified at Menendez’s trial, said he helped Menendez’s wife Nadine get a Mercedes-Benz after the former senator tried to pressure a state prosecutor to drop a criminal probe into the businessman’s associates.  

Daibes, the New Jersey real estate developer who bribed Menendez, received a seven-year prison sentence.

Uribe pleaded guilty to bribery-related charges and will face sentencing in April.

Nadine Menendez will go to trial in March on many of the same bribery charges as her husband.