Cnn
–
Former Democratic senator Bob Menendez could incur more than a decade of prison when he was sentenced Wednesday for having taken money, a Mercedes Benz and golden bars as a bribes in exchange to help Three New Jersey businessmen and the government of Egypt.
Menendez was sentenced in July of 16 counts for the long -standing corruption program following a nine -week trial. He became the first American senator charged and found guilty of having acted as an agent of a foreign government. Dozens of witnesses have testified, including one of the businessmen involved in the program.
His conviction marks a spectacular fall for the legislator born of Cuban emigrants who made his policy in politics in Union City, New Jersey. Menendez defeated a federal accusation act for corruption charges in 2018 and has become one of the most powerful senators as president of the Senatorial Relations Committee – a position he abandoned after being charged in The current corruption program in 2023.
The prosecutors of the American prosecutor’s office in Manhattan asked judge Sidney Stein to condemn the former New Jersey senator to “at least 15 years” in prison and to order him to pay millions of dollars in confiscation and fines ” To provide a unique sentence for this extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of public confidence. »»
“Menendez’s conduct may be the most serious for which an American senator was condemned in the history of the Republic,” the prosecutors wrote. The American probation office recommends a sentence of 12 years in prison.
The 71 -year -old legislator, who had categorically maintained his innocence, submitted more than 100 letters of support, notably from the former president of Cyprus, local politicians from New Jersey, religious personalities and voters. His lawyers do not ask for any prison and at least two years of “rigorous community service”.
“We respectfully submit that, despite his conviction, Bob deserves mercy because of the sanctions already imposed, his age and the absence of an imperative need to impose a childcare sentence,” his lawyers wrote on the judge. “Until this conviction has excited his reputation, his career and his life were celebrated mainly for his work in the name of helpless and oppressed,” they added.
His lawyers asked the judge to allow Menendez to stay outside the prison when he appealed his conviction.
During the trial, the jury heard evidence that during a search of the senator’s house, FBI agents found gold ingots and envelopes filled with silver, interior shoes and in a pocket of jacket bearing the name of the senator.
In exchange, the prosecutors allegedly alleged that Menendez had put pressure on the American department of agriculture on a monopoly on the certification of halal meat which benefited one of the businessmen, he made the aid Military to Egypt and “modulated its criticism” of human rights violations in the country. He also tried to falsify two criminal surveys linked to the other two businessmen.
The criminal trial was not the first for the former senator, who was previously charged with corruption charges in 2015 for having allegedly accepted bribes of an ophthalmologist rich in exchange for political favors. According to a trial In 2017, Menendez was acquitted on several charges In 2018 with the Ministry of Justice drop those who remained.
The long -standing politician was charged in September 2023 with his wife Nadine, but their trials were broken after receiving a cancer diagnosis and began to receive treatment. Nadine Menendez pleaded not guilty and should be tried in March.