Former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in jail for buying and selling bribes for political favors.
Federal prosecutors levied allegations of bribery, extortion and appearing as a overseas agent in opposition to Menendez, then-chair of the highly effective Senate Overseas Relations Committee, in fall 2023.
Final summer season, he turned the primary public official ever convicted of appearing as a overseas agent whereas in workplace.
A New York jury discovered the senator and his spouse, Nadine, accepted a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} in money, gold bars and luxurious vehicles from three New Jersey businessmen.
In trade, Menendez protected the halal meat certification monopoly of one of many businessmen, Wael Hana, in trade for profitable kickbacks, and intervened in separate felony instances involving the opposite two males, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.
Earlier than the choose handed down his sentence Wednesday, Menendez, 71, tearfully requested for leniency, citing his a long time of public service.
“You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence,” the ex-senator advised U.S. District Decide Sidney H. Stein, in accordance with The Related Press.
Menendez’s attorneys argued that the case made him a “national punchline,” earning him the nickname “gold bar Bob,” which ought to function punishment in its personal proper. However the choose was not satisfied.
“You were successful; powerful. You stood at the apex of our political system,” Stein stated, in accordance with the AP. ”Someplace alongside the way in which, and I don’t know when it was, you misplaced your manner, and dealing for the general public good turned working in your good.”
Menendez was ordered to report back to jail by June 6. Outdoors the courthouse following his sentencing, he railed in opposition to the justice system and decried his case as a “political prosecution.”
“President Trump was right,” Menendez stated, evoking Trump’s personal authorized battles in New York. “This process is political, and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.”
Hana was additionally sentenced Wednesday to simply greater than eight years in jail, and Daibes to a seven-year jail time period.
Uribe, who pleaded responsible earlier than going through trial, is ready to be sentenced in June. Nadine Menendez’s trial has been postponed a number of occasions attributable to ongoing breast most cancers therapy and is now scheduled to start in March.
Because the highly effective chair of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, Menendez signed off on a number of multimillion-dollar weapons gross sales to Egypt, which he repeatedly requested his spouse to relay to the businessmen, who then handed on the intel to Egyptian officers, between 2018 and 2022.
Following a nine-week trial, Menendez was discovered responsible on all 16 counts he confronted. He resigned from Congress quickly after.
Federal prosecutors sought a 15-year jail time period for Menendez, whose conduct they stated constituted an “extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of the public trust.”
“The defendants’ crimes amount to an extraordinary attempt, at the highest levels of the legislative branch, to corrupt the nation’s core sovereign powers over foreign relations and law enforcement,” the federal government wrote in its sentencing memorandum.
Nevertheless, the advice is a downward departure from federal sentencing pointers, which prompt a 24-to-30-year jail time period. Prosecutors stated the request for a decrease — albeit nonetheless important — sentence was “based principally” on Menendez’s age.
The sentencing got here on the heels of the choose’s choice to not toss Menendez’s corruption conviction or grant a brand new trial, regardless of jurors gaining access to trial reveals with out correct redactions throughout their deliberations.
Menendez’s lawyer beforehand requested a jail time period of not more than two years, however after the ex-senator’s co-defendants had been sentenced to seven years and eight years, respectively, he modified his request to a most of eight years.
Although the choose decided there was an “infinitesimal chance” the jurors even considered the mistakenly despatched supplies, the previous senator has repeatedly claimed prosecutorial misconduct and vowed to attraction.
The Related Press contributed.
Up to date at 4:35 pm EST
Author : LasVegasNews
Publish date : 2025-01-30 03:59:04
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