Former Senator Robert Menendez Sentenced to 11 Years for Bribery, Acting as a Foreign Agent, and Obstruction
On January 29, 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced that former U.S. Senator Robert Menendez had been sentenced in federal court in New York County, New York, to 11 years in prison for bribery, foreign agent, and obstruction of justice offenses. His co-defendants, businessman Wael Hana was sentenced to 97 months in prison and a $1,250,000 fine, and Fred Daibes to seven years in prison and a $1,750,000 fine; Menendez was also ordered to forfeit $922,188.10.
The three were convicted on July 16, 2024, following a nine-week jury trial, and were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein. Menendez, 71, was at the time of the scheme the senior U.S. Senator from New Jersey and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prosecutors said that between 2018 and 2022, he and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Hana, Daibes, and insurance businessman Jose Uribe — including gold, cash, a luxury convertible, payments toward Nadine Menendez's home mortgage, and compensation for a low-or-no-show job. In June 2022, the FBI searched the couple's New Jersey home and found more than $480,000 in cash, much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe, as well as more than $100,000 worth of gold bars.
In exchange, Menendez used his power and influence as a Senator to benefit the bribers and foreign governments: he provided Egyptian officials with sensitive, non-public information about the staffing of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, ghostwrote a letter on Egypt's behalf urging Senate colleagues to release a hold on $300 million in aid, and pressured a senior Agriculture Department official to protect Hana's halal certification monopoly; he sought to disrupt a New Jersey Attorney General criminal investigation involving an associate of Uribe; and he recommended a U.S. Attorney candidate for New Jersey whom he believed he could influence in Daibes's federal case, while also making public statements benefiting the Government of Qatar. After the scheme came under investigation, he and his wife conspired to obstruct justice by falsely characterizing bribe payments as loans.
U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said: "The sentences imposed today result from an egregious abuse of power at the highest levels of the Legislative Branch of the federal government. Robert Menendez was trusted to represent the United States and the State of New Jersey, but instead he used his position to help his co-conspirators and a foreign government, in exchange for bribes like cash, gold, and a luxury car." The case was investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by the Office's Public Corruption Unit. Uribe has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 24, 2025; charges remain pending against Nadine Menendez, who is presumed innocent and is scheduled to go to trial on March 18, 2025.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于曼哈顿的 Daniel Patrick Moynihan 联邦法院大楼，纽约南区联邦地区法院所在地。（Ken Lund 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons） / Photo: The Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Manhattan, home of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. (Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
