Former NJ Sen. Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years for corruption

Former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for using his immense influence on the Senate foreign relations committee and in the Garden State in exchange for nearly $500,000 in bribes.

A jury found Menendez, 71, guilty in July of 16 counts of bribery, helping a foreign government, and obstruction of justice after a nine-week trial. The bribes came in the form of cash-stuffed envelopes, gold bars, paychecks for a fake job and a Mercedes-Benz convertible.

The sentence capped a stunning downfall for Menendez, a Democrat who was once one of New Jersey’s most powerful politicians and a dominant figure in U.S. foreign relations. Prosecutors wrote that Menendez was the first senator convicted of a crime involving abuse of a leadership position on a Senate committee. They said he was also the first senator convicted of serving as a foreign agent.

His crimes, they wrote, were of “rare gravity.”

Inside the courtroom, Menendez cried as he pleaded with Manhattan federal Judge Sidney Stein for leniency. Menendez said he’d committed to public service “not for power or glory, but to change the course of events for the people I serve.”

“You have before you a chastened man,” he said before bursting into tears.

Menendez’s attorney, Adam Fee, asked the judge to take into account all the good things he’s done before sentencing him.

“Despite his decades of service, he is more known now as ‘Gold Bar Bob,’” the lawyer said.

Stein declined Fee’s request for an eight-year sentence but gave Menendez less time than the U.S. attorney’s office's recommendation of 15 years, citing his age, health and past good deeds.

“You were successful, powerful. You stood at the apex of our political system,” the judge said. “Somewhere along the way you lost your way. Working for public good became working for your good.”

Outside of court, Menendez proclaimed he was “innocent” and vowed to appeal. He called the case a “political witch hunt,” borrowing a phrase from President Donald Trump, who has the power to pardon Menendez’s crimes.

“President Trump was right,” Menendez said. “This process was political and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.”

Menendez didn’t respond to questions about whether he’s seeking a pardon.

The charges revolved around a corrupt deal involving Menendez, the Egyptian government, and a New Jersey businessman with a monopoly over halal certification of U.S. meat exports to Egypt. Egypt’s agreement to give the businessman, Wael Hana, the monopoly harmed other American meat exporters to the country, according to testimony. But Menendez used his political influence to back Hana’s business. In exchange, Hana bribed Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez.

Menendez, meanwhile, also used his influence as leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help Egypt obtain military aid from the United States.

Fred Daibes, a wealthy 67-year-old real estate developer from Edgewater who invested in Hana’s company, delivered cash-filled envelopes to Menendez.

The senator was also convicted on charges that helped Daibes secure a real estate investment from the royal family of Qatar in exchange for a favorable statement about the country.

Hana and Daibes were charged along with Menendez. Earlier on Wednesday, Hana was sentenced to seven years in prison and Daibes was sentenced to eight years.

Nadine Menendez, who first began dating the senator shortly before the bribery deal began in 2019, is also charged in the case. Her trial will begin in March after delays due to her treatment for breast cancer.

She was friends with Daibes and Hana before she began dating Menendez. Prosecutors say she acted as a middle person in the bribery scheme. Much of the evidence presented at trial were text messages. Nadine Menendez set up a consulting business and texted family members: “Every time I'm in the middle person for a deal, I am asking to get paid and this is my consulting company.” And when she was upset that she hadn’t been paid, she texted Menendez that she would complain. He texted her back: “No, you should not text or email.”

Hana's defense attorney Larry Lustberg continues to believe federal prosecutors did not prove that the nearly $500,000 in gifts and gold bars found in the Menendez home were bribes.

“I will go to my grave believing that the government did not prove its case here,” Lustberg told Gothamist. “I don't think that Bob Menendez was ever bribed. But did he receive gifts? Of course he did. Did he do things that were beneficial to his constituents? He did that too.”

But Lustberg says prosecutors never proved that Hana or Daibes asked him to do those things for money.

Stein received dozens of letters asking for a lenient sentence for Menendez, including one from Victor Herlinsky, a member of the New Jersey State Ethics Commission. “I sincerely wish that I didn’t have to write this letter. I would have much rather been writing a letter to support Bob Menendez’s re-election this November,” he wrote last summer.

Menendez resigned his Senate seat in August after 37 years in public service. He was the first Latino to be elected mayor of Union City, as well as to the New Jersey General Assembly and state Senate. When he was in the U.S. House of Representatives, he was elected vice-chair of the Democratic Caucus, becoming the first Latino in House leadership.

He began his political career on the school board in his hometown, Union City, and then testified against his mentor, political boss William Musto, in a corruption and bribery trial.

Menendez will be the first U.S. senator to be sent to prison in 44 years. The last was Sen. Harrison Williams, also of New Jersey, who was convicted in the Abscam case, which caught him accepting a bribe from an FBI agent posing as an Arab sheikh. In the intervening years, a handful of other senators were indicted but they either avoided jail or were acquitted.

Recent rulings by the Supreme Court have made it harder for federal prosecutors to bring public corruption charges. Good government advocates saw Menendez’s conviction and prison sentence as a modest victory.

“ I don't know that it changes the nature of this kind of crisis that we're in – of unaccountable corruption,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Other than to say you can't be so careless that you leave a really outrageous trail of evidence behind you … I think there's a little bit of comfort in that, but, but not a lot of comfort in it.”

U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said after the sentencing that Menendez carried out an “egregious abuse of power.”

“The sentences imposed today send a clear message that attempts at any level of government to corrupt the nation’s foreign policy and the rule of law will be met with just punishment,” she said in a statement.