Ex-New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribery conviction

NEW YORK (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes of gold and cash and acting as an agent of Egypt — crimes his own lawyer said earned him the nickname “Gold Bar Bob.”

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein in Manhattan announced the sentence after Menendez tearfully addressed the judge, saying he’d lost everything he cared about, except for his family.

“You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political system,” the judge said. “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.”

Menendez’s actions, the judge said, feed the cynicism of voters.

“What’s been the result?” he said, noting a lengthy investigation of a five-year crime. “You lost your senate seat. You lost your chairmanship and you lost your good name.”

Prosecutors had requested a 15-year prison term for the Democrat who was convicted of multiple charges including acting as an agent for Egypt for selling his once-considerable clout in Washington for bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Given a chance to speak before he was sentenced, Menendez broke down several times as he described his accomplishments.

“You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence,” Menendez told Stein as he stood before him with his hands in his pockets, except when he wiped his face with a tissue.

“Your honor, I am far from a perfect man. I have made more than my share of mistakes and bad decisions,” he added. “I’ve done far more good than bad. I ask you, your honor, to judge me in that context.”

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.

Menendez’s lawyers had said prior to the sentencing that their client deserves less than two years in prison, citing his decades of public service and a life largely well-lived after the son of Cuban immigrants rose from poverty to become “the epitome of the American Dream.”