Ex- NJ Senator Menendez Sentenced To Prison In Gold Bar Bribery Case

NEW JERSEY — Former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison Wednesday after being convicted of 16 felony counts in a high-profile bribery scheme.

Last July, the Hudson County Democrat was convicted of accepting bribes, using the power of his office to protect allies from prosecution, and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. He resigned from the Senate in August, after months of maintaining his innocence and resisting calls from other top Democrats to step down.

Menendez, 71, fought through tears as he asked U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein for leniency in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday.

“You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence,” Menendez said, before going in to a list of accomplishments from his decades in public service.

Stein delivered the sentence in front of a packed courtroom, telling Menendez, "Somewhere along the way, and I don’t know when it was, you lost your way and working for the public good became working for your good.”

Afterward, talking to reporters with TV cameras and microphones outside, the former senator turned defiant.

“I am innocent,” he proclaimed, vowing to appeal. Menendez released a statement on his social media Wednesday night, saying the trial has been "nothing but a political witch hunt" and even tagging President Donald Trump in his post.

"Trump is right," Menendez wrote. "This process is political and has been corrupted to the core. I hope (he) cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system."

Prosecutors had asked the judge for a 15-year sentence, while lawyers for the longtime senator asked for no more than an eight-year sentence on Wednesday.

Attorney Adam Fee told Stein to give Menendez credit for a “lifetime of extraordinary public service and personal sacrifices.”

“Despite his decades of service, he is now known more widely as 'gold bar Bob,'" Fee said.

Two New Jersey businessmen convicted of paying bribes to the senator, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, were also sentenced Wednesday. Daibes, a real estate developer, was sentenced to seven years in prison and a $1.75 million fine. Hana, an entrepreneur, was handed a sentence of eight years in prison and a fine of $1.25 million.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, were indicted on Sept. 22, 2023 for allegedly accepting the bribes of cash, gold and a luxury car from at least three business contacts.

Investigators famously found gold bars in the couple's closet during a search of their home, according to federal prosecutors, who alleged the items were part of a bribe.

FBI agents who searched the house found $480,000 in cash, some of it stuffed inside boots and the pockets of clothing hung in the couple’s closets. They also seized gold bars worth an estimated $150,000.

Prosecutors said Menendez had “put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes,” including by serving Egypt’s interests as he worked to protect a meat certification monopoly Hana had established with the Egyptian government.

Nadine Menendez faces trial in March on many of the same charges as her husband after spending the last year battling breast cancer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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• Menendez To Resign As NJ Senator After Bribery Conviction