Following his criminal conviction, disgraced former U.S. Senator Robert Menendez should spend at least 15 years in prison after he betrayed voters by putting his office “up for sale” in exchange for bribes, U.S. prosecutors said.
In the sentencing recommendation filed late Thursday in a Manhattan federal court, prosecutors said the 71-year-old Democrat who once represented New Jersey is the first senator convicted of abusing a Senate committee leadership position and the first person convicted of serving as a foreign agent while being a public official.
This “historical rarity,” the prosecutors said, was a “grave abuse of his power.” The sentencing recommendation was filed a week after Menendez’s lawyers pleaded for leniency, citing the 71-year-old’s age, decades of public service, charitable works, devotion to family, and financial and professional ruin.
“This case has always been about shocking levels of corruption. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, including gold, cash, and a Mercedes-Benz,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, after a jury convicted Menendez of corruption offenses on July 16, 2024. “This wasn’t politics as usual; this was politics for profit.”
The sum total of prison time Menendez could face, if sentenced to the maximum term for each crime for which he was convicted is 197 years.
Menendez’s lawyers say he should serve less than 27 months while probation officers said their guidelines would have the politician behind bars from 24½ to 30½ years. Prosecutors said arguments that Menendez has been punished enough reflect a “deeply misplaced sense of entitlement.”
“I am pleased that the U.S. Attorney is seeking serious jail time for Robert Menendez,” said Lisa McCormick, the progressive Democrat who managed to win nearly 40 percent of the vote in the 2018 Democratic US Senate primary with virtually no campaign money. “I think there many people would like to give up hope but we cannot afford to do that.”
“Today, Donald Trump was sentenced with no penalty following his New York criminal trial, and a member of the New Jersey Ethics Commission asked a federal judge to go easy on our disgraced former U.S. senator,” said McCormick. “Menendez could 197 years but he won’t live that long, so 15 years would send a clear message.”
A Manhattan jury convicted Menendez on all 16 criminal counts he faced for trading his political influence for bribes, including $150,000 worth of gold bars, cash and other lavish gifts from three corrupt businessmen.
” Americans cannot meet this moment to ensure we defend democratic aspirations around the world because we have a Congress plagued by chaos, where extremist Republicans cannot agree to do anything and too many greedy Democrats like Senator Bob Menendez are too busy stuffing their pockets to get anything done,” said McCormick, who added: “I want people to realize that we’re the 99 percent and it’s not easy when you’re trying to do two and three jobs to make ends meet but if you want to have a democracy, Americans must rise to the responsibility of citizenship.”
Menendez became the first to be convicted of abusing a Senate committee leadership position and the first public official to be convicted of serving as a foreign agent.
Several influential figures have requested leniency for Menendez, who faces sentencing on January 29 on charges of bribery and corruption.
Sen. Cory Booker stood by Menendez when he was indicted in 2015, and he did not call for his colleague to resign until four days after a stunning 2023 indictment charged the senior senator of being part of a bribery scheme in exchange for assistance to the Egyptian government and disrupting criminal investigations.
“Bob is deserving of mercy because of the penalties already imposed, his age, and the lack of a compelling need to impose a custodial sentence,” said defense lawyers who called for Judge Sidney H. Stein to be lenient with Menendez because his conviction had “rendered him a national punchline and stripped him of every conceivable personal, professional, and financial benefit.”
Two years ago, New Jersey political bosses selected his son to be a member of the House of Representatives in New Jersey’s Eighth Congressional District, which contains Elizabeth plus swaths of Newark, Hoboken and Jersey City.
Congressman Menendez survived a vigorous primary challenge from Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla and businessman Kyle Jacey, landing more than 6,000 votes ahead of his closes rival with strong support from the Democratic political establishment.
Menendez was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he was charged in 2023 but was forced out of that position and relinquished his Senate seat in August. He had been a senator for 18½ years.
Prosecutors said in their court submissions that Menendez had, in multiple instances, promoted the Egyptian government’s viewpoints and assisted the Egyptian government in ways “directly adverse to his own fellow U.S. Senators” as he sought to adjust his own public criticism of Egypt.
Menendez was convicted in July of 16 counts of corruption. An FBI raid on his home in 2022 uncovered at least $150,000 in gold bars, $480,000 in cash and a Mercedes-Benz. A large portion of the cash, prosecutors said, was the result of bribes from three New Jersey businessmen. The men had sought the senator’s protection and influence in schemes that included giving one of them, Wael Hana, the sole right to certify that U.S. meat exported to Egypt adhered to Islamic dietary requirements, forcing out other companies that had been certifying the exportations.
Two of the businessmen — Walle Hana and Fred Daibes — were convicted with Menendez. Prosecutors have called for them to spend 10 and nine years in prison, respectively. The third co-defendant pleaded guilty and testified at the trial.
Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, who is facing many of the same charges as her husband, has pleaded not guilty. Her trial is scheduled to begin next month. It was delayed last year after a breast cancer diagnosis required surgery.
Menendez disputed the prosecution’s recommendation for prison by arguing that the Biden administration supported the aid and weapons sales to Egypt central to the case, after the Trump administration had overridden a Congressional hold and that three other members of Congress were involved in approving the aid.
Menendez also claimed his history as a critic of Egypt’s human rights record contradicts claims he was bribed and asserted that testimony from both the U.S. Attorney and the former New Jersey Attorney General revealed no evidence of illegality.
The defendant argued that the prosecution’s claim he was a foreign agent would also implicate other lawmakers who supported the same resolution, including Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State-designate.
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