Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted on federal bribery charges and acting as foreign agent.
Menendez, who represented New Jersey for more than 18 years in the U.S. Senate, was found guilty last July of trading his influence in Washington in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and a luxury vehicle.
Before the sentence was handed down, Menendez said, “Other than family, I have lost everything I ever cared about, every day I’m awake is a punishment.
The once-powerful Democrat, who insisted he was innocent, was convicted on 16 counts of bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, extortion and acting as a foreign agent. He said he always put American interests first and the gold bars belonged to his wife, Nadine. A month later he resigned from the Senate.
Donald Sherman, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, D.C., said Menendez’s blatant corruption made a mockery of the Senate.
“Sen. Menendez’s sentence makes sense, and it is an example of the justice system working to hold someone accountable for violating the public trust,” he said.
Sherman said he believes the message is “the system can work if it is allowed to work, if prosecutors are allowed to be persistent.”
He also said, “I think Mr. Menendez escaped accountability for prior misconduct, but he is certainly being held accountable right now.”
Lawyers for Menendez had asked for less than two years in prison, saying their client had become a “national punchline” despite decades of good deeds, and that his life was in tatters.
Prosecutors had asked Judge Sidney Stein to sentence Menendez to at least 15 years in prison, describing his conduct as possibly “the most serious for which a U.S. senator has been convicted in the history of the republic.”
During the trial, prosecutors said Menendez had used his political influence to benefit three New Jersey businessmen: Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe, as well as the governments of Egypt and Qatar. In exchange, prosecutors said the businessmen had given Menendez an assortment of valuable gifts.