Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in federal prison for selling the powers of his office to wealthy benefactors and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government — the latest demonstration of just how far the once-prominent Democrat has fallen after spending four decades in the nation’s halls of power.
U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein said the penalty reflected the seriousness of Menendez’s crimes, which he said were motivated by “greed” and “hubris” and “betrayed the voters of New Jersey.”
”Somewhere along the way, you lost your way, and working for the public good became working for your good,” Stein told Menendez, who showed no outward reaction as his sentence was imposed.
Earlier in the hearing, however, Menendez choked up when recalling acts that he said displayed his decades of public service, including advocating for life-saving medical care for constituents, and seeking to help homeowners recoup higher insurance payments after Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey.
He did not, however, discuss at length the crimes for which he was convicted, saying only that he had lost nearly everything he’d worked for in the wake of his conviction. “Other than family,” he said, “I have lost everything.”
Prosecutors had asked the judge to imprison Menendez for 15 years, saying his case marked the first time that an American elected official has been found guilty of working on behalf of a foreign government, and describing his conduct as “perhaps more serious than that for which any other Senator has been convicted in United States history.”
Menendez’s crimes, they wrote in court documents, “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.”
Menendez’s attorneys, meanwhile, asked Stein for leniency, suggesting that any term of incarceration should not exceed about 2½ years. They said Menendez had dedicated his life to public service, and that his conviction has already ended his political career, destroyed his reputation, and upended his life.
“He is certain never to commit future offenses,” they said in court documents. “And his current state — stripped of office and living under a permanent shadow of disgrace and mockery — are more than sufficient to reflect the seriousness of the offenses and to promote respect for the law.”
Menendez was convicted in July of accepting bribes including gold bars, cash, and a Mercedes-Benz to advance the interests of three New Jersey businessmen with ties to Egypt. Among other crimes, prosecutors said, Menendez lobbied a federal agency to grant one of the men — Wael Hana — a monopoly on certain meat exports from the United States to Egypt. Hana and another businessman, Fred Daibes, were convicted alongside Menendez at trial, while a third, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty and testified against them.
Prosecutors said Menendez, once the chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took other troubling actions after receiving the bribes, including promoting the views of the Egyptian government, briefing Egyptian officials on pointed questions other senators might ask them, and helping ghost-write a letter justifying alleged human rights abuses that occurred there.
“Menendez literally not just took the side of, but secretly authored a response in the voice of, a foreign government against his own fellow U.S. Senators,” prosecutors wrote.
In addition, prosecutors said Menendez tried to quash criminal investigations in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office at Uribe’s request. In exchange for Menendez’s help, Uribe testified, he gave Menendez’s wife, Nadine, the Mercedes-Benz (Nadine Menendez was also charged in the case, but she is still awaiting trial because she has been receiving treatment for breast cancer).
Menendez’s attorneys said that as prosecutors sought to justify a “vindictive and cruel” term of incarceration, they wrote a sentencing memo that was a “hyperbolic screed filled with overheated rhetoric” and presented “a fictionalized account of Senator Menendez’s conduct.” They said some of Menendez’s interactions with Egyptian officials were far less dramatic than prosecutors had described, including by sending them news articles, or sharing unclassified information with his wife.
Menendez resigned his seat in August after a wide array of officials called for him to step down. Former U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, a Democrat, won the election to fill Menendez’s former seat in November.
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