Bob Menendez, the as soon as a strong New Jersey senator, cried as he begged a Manhattan choose for leniency Wednesday — and was sentenced to 11 years in jail for promoting out his lofty publish for gold bars, money, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and different bribes.
“Your honor, You could have earlier than you a chastened man,” Menendez, 71, mentioned earlier than choking up.
“I’ve devoted my whole life to the service of others,” he mentioned, dabbing his tears with a tissue. “I’m removed from an ideal man, however I imagine in my half century of public service I’ve finished extra good than unhealthy.”
The show of waterworks got here earlier than Manhattan federal courtroom choose Sidney Stein handed the sentence to the three-term Democrat — who resigned in shame in August after a jury discovered him responsible of taking a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in payola in trade for shielding and enriching businessmen and overseas governments.
“Someplace alongside the best way you turned, I’m sorry to say, a corrupt politician,” Stein advised the disgraced pol.
The previous head of the Senate International Relations Committee — tasked with approving huge sums of deadly army help — did favors for Egypt and Qatar whereas go-betweens showered him and his spouse, Nadine, with money, gold bars, the posh automobile, checks for a no-show job and payouts to a sham “consulting” agency, trial proof revealed.
“What else can the love of my life do for you?” Menendez’s spouse Nadine advised an Egyptian official whereas her worldwide affairs honcho hubby smoked cigars and swigged crimson wine at a Might 2019 assembly at Morton’s Steakhouse, an FBI agent who secretly noticed the scene testified.
Brokers who raided the Menendezs’ cluttered Englewood Cliffs home in June 2022 discovered 13 gold bars price $150,000 tucked inside a bed room secure. Almost $500,000 in money was unfold out all around the home— together with wads of payments totaling $14,500 piled right into a pair of Timberland work boots, and cash-filled envelopes stuffed into the pockets of his official Senate jacket.
Menendez didn’t testify throughout the nine-week trial. However his older sister tried to downplay the money trove as an innocuous decades-long behavior stemming from his mistrust of banks attributable to their Cuban heritage.
“It’s a Cuban factor,” Caridad Gonzalez testified.
Prosecutors had requested the choose to condemn Menendez to at the very least 15 years in jail. They identified that the case was the primary time that any US Senator — or any public official, for that matter — was discovered responsible of serving as an unlawful “overseas agent” whereas in workplace.
“Menendez, who swore an oath to signify the USA and the State of New Jersey, as an alternative put his excessive workplace up on the market in trade for this hoard of bribes,” the feds wrote.
Protection attorneys had urged the choose to have “mercy” on Menendez, and impose a sentence of lower than two years.
The responsible verdict has already “rendered him a nationwide punchline and stripped him of each conceivable private, skilled, and monetary profit,” the attorneys argued in courtroom papers.
Prosecutors at trial laid out a staggering slew of actions Menendez took between 2018 and 2022 on behalf of overseas nations and his alleged cronies, together with businessmen Wael Hana, 40, and Fred Daibes, 66, who have been additionally convicted of funneling bribes to the senator and his spouse.
Daibes was sentenced earlier Wednesday to seven years in jail and fined $1.75 million, whereas Hana was handed a eight-year sentence and fined $1.25 million.
Among the many favors Menendez doled out whereas the payoffs rolled in was ghostwriting a letter asking the US to unfreeze $300 million in army help to Egypt that had been held up attributable to human rights considerations, jurors heard.
Menendez additionally leaned on the Agriculture Division to guard Egypt-born businessman Hana’s profitable monopoly on approving halal meat exports to Egypt — awarded regardless of Hana having no prior expertise with halal items, trial proof confirmed.
On high of that, Menendez tried to meddle in a state prosecution on behalf of insurance coverage dealer Jose Uribe, 57 — who flipped on the embattled pol and testified to purchasing Nadine a brand new Mercedes-Benz C-300 in trade for the senator’s assist, jurors heard.
“Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we’re the proud house owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” Nadine Menendez texted her husband after receiving the primary fee towards the brand new automobile, utilizing the French phrase for “love of my life.”
The then-senator later bragged throughout a dinner at upscale North Jersey Spanish restaurant Segovia that “I saved your ass, not as soon as however twice,” Uribe testified.
Menendez additionally tried to get entangled in a federal financial institution fraud case towards his shut pal Daibes, together with by griping in regards to the prosecution to future US Legal professional of New Jersey Philip Sellinger, Sellinger testified.
Sellinger was within the working for the highly effective Justice Division publish on the time — and profitable a possible blessing from Menendez, New Jersey’s senior senator, may have helped clinch his candidacy, jurors heard.
A jury of 12 New Yorkers convicted Menendez of all 16 expenses he confronted, together with bribery, extortion, performing as an unlawful overseas agent and obstructing justice.
Nadine was additionally charged by the feds, however her trial is at present set for March, after her case was delayed attributable to her being recognized with breast most cancers.
Uribe, who is anticipated to testify at Nadine’s trial, will probably be sentenced after that case is resolved.
The Manhattan trial was Menendez’s second time dealing with federal corruption expenses.
In an earlier case, New Jersey prosecutors charged him with accepting lavish bribes — together with all-expense-paid holidays and personal flights — in trade for favors to a Palm Seaside physician. However that case resulted in a mistrial in 2017.
Menendez has maintained his innocence and vowed to attraction his conviction.
At trial, Menendez’s attorneys claimed that he’d been merely “doing his job” by serving to out constituents and fascinating in “diplomacy.”
Additionally they took the brazen step of blaming his spouse for the gold bars discovered of their dwelling.
The attorneys argued that the “lovely, tall” Nadine, who’s of Lebanese and Albanian descent, “stored him at midnight” in regards to the payoffs. They claimed that receiving gold bar “presents” was a typical Lebanese customized.
“It’s cultural,” lawyer Avi Weitzman argued. “They like to provide gold and different valuable metals as presents.”
But the feds offered proof that the senator was the one calling the pictures of their relationship.
Uribe, the insurance coverage dealer, recalled a night assembly with Menendez at which the senator rung a small bell to beckon his spouse onto their patio — after calling out to her, “mon amour!”
The feds reminded jurors of that second of their last pitch to jurors, who discovered Menendez responsible after round 12½ hours of deliberations unfold over three days.
“He’s not a puppet having his strings pulled by somebody he summons with a bell,” prosecutor Paul Monteleoni mentioned.
