By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors say former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez should be imprisoned for 15 years, after the Democrat from New Jersey became the first to be convicted of abusing a Senate committee leadership position and the first public official to be convicted of serving as a foreign agent.
In papers filed late Thursday in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors called for the lengthy prison term for the 71-year-old Menendez when he is sentenced on Jan. 29.
Menendez was convicted in July of 16 corruption charges brought after an FBI raid on his residence in 2022 turned up $150,000 in gold bars and $480,000 in cash, much of which prosecutors alleged was the result of bribes paid by three New Jersey businessmen who wanted the senator to use his power to protect their interests and make them money.
When he was charged in fall 2023, Menendez was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was forced out of that position in 2023 and gave up his Senate seat in August.
In presentence arguments last week, defense lawyers called for Judge Sidney H. Stein to be lenient with Menendez, saying his conviction had “rendered him a national punchline and stripped him of every conceivable personal, professional, and financial benefit.”
“Bob is deserving of mercy because of the penalties already imposed, his age, and the lack of a compelling need to impose a custodial sentence,” the lawyers said.
Two businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, were also convicted along with Menendez while a third pleaded guilty and testified at the July trial. Prosecutors called for Hana to receive at least 10 years in prison and Daibes to spend at least nine years behind bars. Prosecutors said the crimes occurred from 2018 to 2022.
In their submission, prosecutors called the case a “historical rarity” because Menendez abused his powerful post on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and because he acted as an agent of Egypt.
“The defendants’ crimes amount to an extraordinary attempt, at the highest levels of the Legislative Branch, to corrupt the nation’s core sovereign powers over foreign relations and law enforcement,” prosecutors wrote.
“He corruptly promised to influence foreign relations, including attempting to pressure a federal agency engaged in diplomatic attempts to protect U.S. businesses from an extractive monopoly granted by a foreign nation to one of his coconspirators. And he corruptly promised to subvert the rule of law by disrupting multiple felony criminal proceedings, state and federal, including by influencing the selection of the chief federal law enforcement officer for New Jersey,” they added.
With Menendez’s help, Hana was granted the sole right to certify that meat exported to Egypt from the United States conformed to Islamic dietary requirements.
The monopoly that Hana’s company received forced out several other companies that had been certifying beef and liver exported to Egypt and occurred over a span of several days in May 2019, according to trial testimony.
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