On Wednesday, Robert Menendez, the former strong senator from New Jersey who was found guilty in a broad federal corruption case including gold bars, money in jacket pockets, and unchecked influence peddling, received an 11-year jail sentence for the scandal that caused him to quit.
After a nine-week trial in Manhattan, Menendez, 71, a Democrat who started his career in the hardball politics of Hudson County and eventually rose to the Senate in Washington, was found guilty in July of accepting nearly a million dollars in gifts and bribes from three businessmen looking for political favors. The senator’s wife received a $60,000 luxury Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible from one of the businessmen.
His conviction for plotting to act as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government, however, was even more startling.
Menendez wept in court before U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein handed down the punishment.
He remarked, “You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence.” I’m not a flawless man at all. I’ve made my fair share of poor choices and errors.
But I’ve done a lot more good than bad, he continued.
The court, however, was harshly critical.
Stein remarked, “You were successful, powerful, and at the top of our political system.” You lost your way sometime along the line, and I’m not sure when it happened, and working for the public good turned into working for your own.
Prosecutors had requested a 15-year sentence along with hefty fines.
This is the first time a senator has ever been found guilty of a crime involving the misuse of a senate committee leadership position. In their sentencing memo, they informed the court that this is the first time a senator or other public figure has ever been found guilty of acting as a foreign agent while in office. Despite their historical rarity, the defendants’ crimes represent an exceptional attempt at corruption of the nation’s essential sovereign powers over law enforcement and diplomatic relations at the highest levels of the Legislative Branch.
They said that the blatant greed that drove them only served to highlight the seriousness of each of those promised abuses of power.
Menendez’s attorneys contended that he ought to be sentenced to less than two years in prison.
In their own sentencing memorandum, they stated that his reputation has been ruined, his political and professional careers are terminated, and the last years of his life are in ruins. He will definitely never do anything wrong again. Furthermore, his current situation—being removed from office and living in constant shame and ridicule—is more than enough to highlight the gravity of the crimes and encourage adherence to the law.
During the trial, defense lawyer Adam Fee requested that Stein acknowledge Menendez’s lifetime of exceptional public service and selflessness.
According to Fee, he is now more often known as Gold Bar Bob despite his decades of devotion.
Menendez’s lawyers requested that the judge grant him bail so that he could stay out of jail while he appealed.
Two of the businesspeople who gave Menendez hundreds of thousands of dollars were also given harsh penalties earlier in the day on Wednesday.
Fred Daibes, a rich developer with connections to Menendez who built opulent skyscrapers along the Hudson River in Edgewater, was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined $1.75 million. Wael Will Hana was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $1.25 million for allegedly paying off the senator to help him land a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government over the certification of imported meat, according to the prosecution.
The third individual involved in the case, Jose Uribe, a discredited insurance executive who was prosecuted in the case, admitted to bribing the couple and entered a guilty plea prior to the trial. He was the government’s star witness. Later this year, he is expected to be sentenced.
Charges remain against Nadine Menendez, who wed the senator in 2020, for her suspected involvement in the plot. The former senator’s lawyers blamed her during testimony for the money coming into their home, saying she concealed her financial difficulties from her husband and accepted presents and other payments from their rich acquaintances. A separate trial is scheduled for her, but it has been postponed while she continues her cancer treatment.
During the trial, a picture of Menendez and his wife, Nadine, with Wael Hana was introduced as evidence.SDNY
Menendez’s lawyers have already filed an appeal of the decision. The U.S. Supreme Court may oppose that attempt since it has already dismissed a number of high-profile cases involving bribery and corruption in recent years, significantly restricting the types of official actions taken by legislators that qualify as bribery or corruption.
In fact, Menendez’s lawyers invoked the historic ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that reversed the conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell in a case that changed the definition of political corruption in order to request the case be dismissed before Menendez’s trial.
McDonnell was found guilty of accepting $175,000 in gifts and cash from a businessman in Richmond while setting up meetings with state representatives. The high court, however, decided that the former governor’s actions on behalf of his patron were not regarded as official acts. It further stated that, regardless of the allegations, prosecutors had to demonstrate a clear quid pro quo that the official performed an official function in exchange for the gifts.
Wielding influence
More than a year ago, the case against Menendez—who resigned his seat in August—came to light after prosecutors accused the senator of conspiring to use his position to thwart state and federal criminal investigations that targeted his wealthy friends and of giving Egyptian intelligence officials sensitive information while he was the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman.
An FBI agent testified during the trial about his surveillance when Menendez was dining with Egyptian officials at a steakhouse. As the meal came to a conclusion, Nadine Menendez turned to one of the men and asked, “What else can the love of my life do for you?” the agent informed the jurors.
According to the Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney’s Office indictment, Menendez vowed to use his connections to thwart the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office’s 2011 probe into Uribe.
Additionally, it claimed that Menendez unethically coerced a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee in order to safeguard a business monopoly granted to Hana, whose organization had been given permission by the Egyptian government to confirm that halal meat exported for sale to the 90 million Muslims in the country had been prepared in accordance with Islamic law. Prosecutors said that the monopoly was partially utilized to finance the bribes given to Menendez via his wife, a close friend of Hana’s.
Menendez was also accused of pledging to use his position of authority and influence to suggest to then-President Joe Biden that he appoint someone he thought might be swayed in connection with a separate federal bank fraud investigation involving Daibes as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Additionally, prosecutors claimed that the developer gave Menendez and his spouse cash and gold bars in exchange for the senator’s assistance in a multimillion-dollar transaction with a Qatari investment group.
Prosecutors also said that Menendez ghostwrote a letter to fellow senators urging them to lift a block on $300 million in military aid to Egypt and sent Egyptian officials information about the personnel in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
Wael Hana and Fred Daibes (l.), who were both found guilty of giving bribes to Menendez, are scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday for sentence.AP Photo of Julia Demaree Nikhinson
The government’s confiscation of the Mercedes Benz, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gold bars, and nearly half a million dollars’ worth of cash in piles discovered in the Menendez residence, among other obscene details that defense lawyers claimed were meant to paint a distorted picture, sparked outrage over the charges.
Not testifying at the trial, Menendez maintained that the money discovered in his Englewood Cliffs house was the consequence of intergenerational trauma from his family’s experience in Cuba, which caused him to hoard money after his parents fled to the US. According to his lawyers, his wife also failed to inform him about payments, which they argued were more related to her personal financial troubles.
In the end, Menendez was found guilty on all 16 counts against him, including conspiracy to operate as a foreign agent, which was the first time a sitting senator had been charged with such a crime, as well as bribery, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice.
The conviction occurred about six years after he was tried in a separate corruption case in which he was accused of exchanging the authority of his position for six-figure campaign contributions, lavish hotel stays in Paris and the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean villa, golf outings, pricey meals, and private charter jet flights—all of which were provided by Salomon Melgen, a significant campaign backer.
Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist and Menendez’s longtime friend, had allegedly asked the senator to step in on his behalf in a $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute, according to the government. In addition, the senator allegedly actively supported Melgen’s foreign girlfriends’ visa applications and exerted pressure on federal executive agencies regarding a contested port security contract in the Dominican Republic that would benefit one of Melgen’s companies. The case was brought out of Washington by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity section.
U.S. District Judge William Walls later cleared Menendez and Melgen of seven of the 18 counts against them after a deadlocked jury in November 2017 was unable to reach a verdict. Walls concluded that the government had not provided proof of either direct or circumstantial facts to establish a quid pro quo. The case was then abandoned by the prosecution.
Melgen was found guilty of healthcare fraud on separate charges. Before President Donald Trump, during his first term, commuted his sentence on his last day in office in 2021, he had been serving 17 years in federal prison.
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This report was contributed to by the Associated Press.
You can contact Ted Sherman at [email protected]. He may be followed on X@TedShermanSL.
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