In what can simultaneously be viewed as a spectacular fall from grace and an audacious display of hubris, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey, Bob Menendez, was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in federal prison for his conviction on corruption and bribery charges.
In the courtroom, Menendez was occasionally unable to control his emotions as he made an appeal for leniency.
“You have before you a chastened man,” he told the judge.
“Other than family, I have lost everything I ever cared about,” he added. “For someone who spent his entire life in public service, every day I’m awake is a punishment.”
Outside the courtroom, after sentencing, Menendez returned to the defiant man he has been throughout his five-decades political career in rough-and-tumble Hudson County.
“I am innocent,” he said.
Menendez, 71, then seemingly made an appeal to someone he has long been at odds with: President Donald Trump.
“President Trump is right,” he said. “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.”
Barring a successful appeal or intervention with Trump – the odds on either are anyone’s guess – Menendez could end up spending the rest of his life behind bars.
It could be an incredible end to his American Dream story.
The son of Cuban immigrants, he won his first office at the age of 20 (in 1974) when he was elected to the school board in Union City, a town he would later serve as mayor of (1986-92). It was just the start of his politic career.
Menendez was elected to serve in the General Assembly in 1988, then jumped to the State Senate in 1991. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1993, serving there until 2006 when he was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jon Corzine (who was elected governor.).
Menendez was elected to a full Senate term in 2006, then re-elected in 2012 and 2018, eventually rising to the role of chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
During that time, things changed.
Menendez was convicted last July of 16 felony counts in which he was found to have taken cash, a Mercedes Benz and gold bars as bribes in exchange for helping three businessmen and the Egyptian government in a long-running corruption scheme.
Menendez was the first US senator charged and convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government.
His attorney, Adam Fee, said Menendez deserved credit for his decades in public service.
“For nearly 50 years he’s been tireless servant of his community, his state and his country,” Fee said. “Despite his decades of service, he is known more widely as ‘Gold Bar Bob.’”
District Judge Sidney Stein wasn’t moved, admonishing Menendez.
“The public cannot be led to the belief that you can get away with bribery, fraud and betrayal,” Stein said.
“I don’t know what led you to this – greed was certainly part of it,” Stein went on to say. “But that can’t be it, I don’t think that explains everything. Hubris was part of it, I don’t know. You’ll have to try to figure that out yourself over time.”
