NEW YORK — A federal judge sentenced former Sen. Bob Menendez to 11 years in prison Wednesday for his role in a sweeping criminal case, saying that somewhere along the way the lawmaker became “a corrupt politician.”
Menendez, the 71-year-old former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stood before the federal judge in lower Manhattan as the sentence was delivered in a full but quiet courtroom.
Judge Sidney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York walked through the details of the case and said the evidence was “very substantial.”
Menendez was found guilty last summer on a range of criminal counts, including bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent. He has said he is innocent and will appeal the case.
Somewhere along the way, “you lost your way,” the judge told Menendez.
Stein said he did not know what led Menendez to the conduct, but said “greed” was certainly part of the equation and suggested that “hubris” could have played a role as well.
Stein said the public cannot be led to believe that a person can get away with bribery.
Menendez will not have to surrender to authorities until June 6, a decision made with consideration to the upcoming trial of Menendez’s wife, Nadine, part of the same case. Her trial is scheduled to start in March.
Before he was sentenced, Menendez choked up at times as he spoke before the judge, walking through his lengthy public service career, highlighting his work in Congress and emphasizing his love for his family. He told the judge he has done far more good than bad, and had dedicated his life to the service of others.
“You have before you a chastened man,” he told the judge.
Trump shout-out
Outside the courthouse after the hearing, Menendez struck a much different tone while speaking to media. “Regardless of the judge’s comments today, I am innocent, and I look forward to filing appeals on a whole host of issues,” he said.
He also said the whole process was “nothing but a political witch hunt.”
“Welcome to the Southern District of New York: The Wild West of political prosecutions. President Trump is right. 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,” he added.
The former lawmaker, in exchange for bribes, promised to approve military aid to Egypt, to pressure the New Jersey attorney general to disrupt a criminal probe and to recommend someone for a U.S. attorney post who he thought he could influence to affect a federal case against a real estate developer, according to prosecutors.
An FBI agent testified during the trial that authorities seized gold bars and about $486,000 in cash during a 2022 search of the New Jersey residence that Menendez shared with his wife.
Jurors also heard from an insurance broker who testified that he bribed the senator in an attempt to influence state-level investigations to benefit people close to him.
Prosecutors recommended that the New Jersey Democrat receive at least 15 years in prison, while Menendez’s attorneys previously told the judge that a prison term of no more than 27 months would be sufficient.
In court on Wednesday, Adam Fee, an attorney for Menendez, said they were updating their request to no more than eight years in prison.
Fee urged the judge to consider Menendez’s career in public service and his history of helping people, pointing to the dozens of character letters the defense team filed.
“The good outweighs the bad in the arc of Bob’s life,” Fee said.
Meanwhile, the prosecution in court records highlighted Menendez’s conduct as historic: It’s the first case where a U.S. senator was found guilty of a crime involving the abuse of a Senate committee leadership position, and the first in which a senator was found guilty of serving as a foreign agent while working as a public official, they said.
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