Ex-NJ Sen. Bob Menendez should go to prison for at least 15 years in corruption case: feds
Disgraced former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez should be thrown behind bars for at least 15 years for his “naked greed” in accepting a “hoard of bribes” — including gold bars, cash and gifts, federal prosecutors said.
The 71-year-old Democrat is slated to be sentenced on Jan. 29 after he was convicted in July of accepting bribes in exchange for advancing the the interests of three Garden State businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
The case is one of “rare gravity” — and “the first ever in which a Senator — or any other person — has been convicted of serving as a foreign agent while being a public official,” the feds wrote in a court filing ate Thursday.
Menendez promised to “influence national security, including the country’s provision of large quantities of lethal military aid,” and gave up “sensitive non-public information that could put at risk US and foreign nationals serving at an embassy abroad” — among other quid pro quo arrangements, the documents claim.
The onetime chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations “put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes,” prosecutors wrote in the papers filed in Manhattan federal court.
“The gravity of each of these promised abuses of power is only underscored by the naked greed that motivated them,” the court papers say.
Menendez, the feds have said, pocketed gold bars worth $150,000, hundreds of thousands in cash and a Mercedes convertible in the scheme — which also led to bribery and corruption charges against his wife, Nadine Menendez, and the three businessmen.
Nadine is currently slated to go on trial in February — though she is awaiting a judge’s decision on her bid to postpone the case by a few months in hopes of minimizing any bias that potential jurors could bring to her trial because of the publicity her husband’s sentencing is sure to garner.
Menendez last month made an unsuccessful bid to push off his day of judgment for similar reasons, arguing he wanted to support his wife during her trial and that he didn’t want his fate to influence jurors in her case.
His attorneys have requested that he only be sentenced to up to 27 months — instead of the 12 years that the probation department has recommended.
The lawyers made the bid for leniency in a 400-page filing that included letters of support for the three-term senator — including from the likes of a convicted drug dealer, a US diplomat Cuba once tried to recruit as a spy and a former New Jersey mayor who was also hit with corruption charges.
Menendez, who resigned from his seat in August, was convicted on 16 bribery counts alongside convicted conspirators Wael Hana and Fred Daibes — who prosecutors say doled out the bribes.
Daibes should get at least nine years behind bars and Hana should get at least 10, the feds said in the same Thursday filing.
The third businessman, New Jersey insurance broker Jose Uribe, who pleaded guilty and flipped on Menendez.
Menendez’ lawyers didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday morning.
