The former Democratic senator for New Jersey Bob Menéndez, one of the most prominent Latin politicians in the United States, was sentenced today to 11 years in jail for corruption, in a sentence communicated Wednesday by a federal judge in New York.
Judge Sindey Stein considered Menéndez, 71, guilty of accepting bribes in the form of gold bilges, a luxury car and briefcases full of money while presiding over the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate immense power and became almost necessary channel for Latin American politics.
Menéndez headed a whole plot of corruption fed by the Governments of Catar and Egypt, the latter who originally his wife Nadine, also accused in the same plot.
An FBI agent hidden from Nadine while offering her intermediary services to a senior Egyptian official.
When the FBI made a raid at his home in New Jersey, he found 13 gold bilges hid costume pockets.
“You have been at the cusp of our political system,” the judge said today when reading the conviction, “but somewhere, you lost the course,” said the means present in the view.
Visibly affected, Menéndez replied with the broken voice: “I have sat nine weeks in this court, but you do not know me”, and went on to tell your childhood as a Cuban immigrant. “This is who I am, a man given to the service to others. I have lost everything that mattered to me, and for someone dedicated to public service, every day is a punishment.”
Historical Member of the Democratic Party, Bon Menéndez Labró his career in his fief in New Jersey, which he represented as senator between 2006 and 2024; His own son Robert Menéndez is also a Democratic congressman.
Menéndez clung to his senator until last July, when his position became unsustainable when he was convicted by a jury of the crimes of corruption for which he was convicted today.
