The former Senator of the New Jersey, Bob Menéndez, sentenced to 11 years in prison for conviction for bribery

By Larry Neumeister and Michael R. Sisak, Associated Press

New York (AP) – The former United States senator. Bob Menéndez He was sentenced on Wednesday to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes of gold and effective and acting as an agent of Egypt; The crimes, said his own lawyer, earned him the nickname of “Golden Gold Bob.”

The United States District Judge, Sidney H. Stein, announced the sentence after the Democrat addressed the tear to the judge, saying that he had lost everything that mattered to him, except his family.

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

Menéndez’s actions, said the judge, feeds the cynicism of the voters.

“What has been the result?” He said, pointing to a long investigation of a five -year crime. “You lost your seat in the Senate. You lost your presidency and lost your good name. “

Menéndez, 71, who told the judge in the Court that he was punished, was challenging when he put cameras in a microphones bank outside the Manhattan court, saying: “I am innocent.”

He then criticized the judicial system and aligned with the recent criticisms of President Donald Trump to the judicial system, particularly in New York City.

“President Trump is right. This process is political and corrupted to the center. I hope that President Trump cleans the Cess well and restores the integrity of the system, “he said, reading a sheet of paper and calling himself the victim of” the wild west of political prosecutions. “

Prosecutors had requested a 15 -year prison mandate For Menéndez, who was sentenced for multiple positions, including acting as an Egypt agent for Sell your influence once considerable In Washington for bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Given the opportunity to speak in court, Menéndez broke several times when he described his achievements.

“You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence,” Menéndez told Stein while he was in front of him with his hands in his pockets, except when he cleaned his face several times with a handkerchief.

“Your honor, I’m far from being a perfect man. I have committed more than my part of mistakes and bad decisions, ”he added. “I have done much rather than bad. I ask you, your honor, to judge me in that context. “

The lawyer Adam Fee told Stein to give Menéndez credit for an “extraordinary public service life and personal sacrifices.”

“Despite his decades of service, he is now known more widely as Gold Bar Bob,” Fee said.

Menéndez’s lawyers had said before the sentence that their client deserves less than two years in prison, describing how the son of Cuban immigrants increased from poverty to become “the American sleep epitome” before his conviction would have made a national phrase. “

He had overcome a prosecution once before.

In 2015, it was accused of selling its influence A rich doctor from Florida and businessman who, according to prosecutors, produced luxury vacations and campaign contributions. But the jury in that case could not reach a unanimous verdict. Federal prosecutors dropped the case instead of putting it in trial again.

Before sentenced Menéndez, Stein sentenced two men convicted of bribing Menéndez, giving Fred Daibes, a real estate developer, a seven -year prison period and Wael Hana, a businessman, eight years after bars.

Before the announcement of his sentence, Daibes, 67, told Stein that the jury verdict had left him “suicidal limit”, and requested clemency to be able to take care of his 30 -year -old autistic son.

Hana told the judge: “I am an innocent man.”

A third businessman declared himself guilty and Testified against Menéndez In a trial last year.

Menéndez He resigned from the Senate After his conviction last year, although he lost much of his power in the fall of 2023 when the charges against him were revealed and was forced to deliver his powerful position as president of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The trial tralated Menéndez with Egyptian officials and his search to help three men who bathed him with lucrative gifts found during a 2022 raid in the Clewood cliffs, New Jersey, a home he shared with his wife, Nadine. His wife faces a March trial for many of the same positions as her husband.

The FBI agents who registered the house found $ 480,000, some of them stuffed inside the boots and clothing pockets hanging in the couple’s closets. They also confiscated gold bars worth approximately $ 150,000.

The prosecutors said that Menéndez had “put on sale his high position in exchange for this Treasury of bribes”, even serving the interests of Egypt while working to protect a meat certification monopoly that Hana had established with the Egyptian government.

Among other things, Menéndez provided Egyptian officials with information about the United States embassy staff in Cairo and Ghost wrote a letter to fellow senators who encouraged them to withdraw $ 300 million in military aid from Egypt.

Prosecutors said that for other bribes, Menéndez tried to persuade a federal prosecutor in New Jersey to be easy with Daibes, a politically influential real estate developer accused of bank fraud.

And at the trial, another businessman, José Uribe, testified that he helped Nadine Menéndez obtain a Mercedes-Benz convertible after the senator sought to press State prosecutors to eliminate the criminal probes of his associates.

Menéndez has insisted that he is innocent of any crime, repeatedly saying that his interactions with Egyptian officials were normal for the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, and that he always puts the US interests first. He denied taking bribes and said that the gold bars belonged to his wife.

In the judicial documents, Menéndez’s lawyers described how Menéndez dedicated much of his life to his country and his community after he was marked by the early loss of his father, who committed suicide when Menéndez was 23 years after pay for game debts.

They described a 50 -year history of public service in heroic terms, tracking a career in which Menéndez was mayor of Union City, New Jersey, a state legislator, a member of the United States Chamber and then a senator from 2006 to 2024.

Originally published: January 29, 2025 at 8:05 am PST