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Lawyers for New Jersey’s former Democratic senator, Robert Menendez, have said that even fewer years would be tantamount to a death sentence.
Jan. 10, 2025Updated 12:43 p.m. ET
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have recommended a sentence of at least 15 years for Robert Menendez, New Jersey’s former senator who was convicted of trading his political clout for bribes.
The U.S. attorney’s office is requesting a similarly long period of incarceration for Mr. Menendez’s two co-defendants, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. The government asked the judge, Sidney H. Stein, to impose a sentence of at least 10 years for Mr. Hana and nine years for Mr. Daibes.
The prosecutors, in a memo filed late Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, stressed what they called the “rare gravity” of the crimes.
“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,” they wrote.
The three men are scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 29.
Last week, Mr. Menendez’s lawyers, Avi Weitzman and Adam Fee, described a shorter recommendation made by the court’s probation office — 12 years — as a death sentence and urged Judge Stein to consider a far shorter prison term paired with community service.
Mr. Menendez, 71, has maintained his innocence and plans to appeal the jury verdict.
The prosecutors said the substantial sentences, combined with significant financial penalties would “provide just punishment for this extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of the public trust, and to deter others from ever engaging in similar conduct.”
“Menendez’s conduct may be the most serious for which a U.S. senator has been convicted in the history of the Republic,” the prosecutors told the judge. “Very few senators have even been convicted of any criminal offense, and of those, most of the senators engaging in bribery accepted amounts that are a fraction of what Menendez reaped, even adjusting for inflation.”
Mr. Menendez, a once-powerful Democrat who for years led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for his willingness to help allies in need of political favors.
He was found guilty of trying to meddle in state and federal criminal prosecutions and acting as an agent of a foreign government during a yearslong bribery scheme that involved officials in Egypt and Qatar.
A lawyer for Mr. Hana, Lawrence S. Lustberg, called the 10-year recommended sentence for his client excessive and said it was “inhumane and unjust.”
Mr. Daibes’s lawyer, César de Castro, said the prosecutors’ recommendation that Mr. Daibes, 67, serve nine years in prison was “completely out of line” with penalties imposed for other people convicted of similar conduct. He has argued that a sentence of two years would be appropriate.
Lawyers for Mr. Menendez had no immediate comment on the government’s recommendations.
The three men were convicted in July of every crime they were charged with after a two-month trial in Manhattan.
Mr. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, is accused of acting as a go-between who shuttled messages and bribes between the three men and Egyptian officials, who at the time were pressing for increased military aid. Her trial was delayed to allow time for her to be treated for breast cancer, and it is scheduled to start a week after her husband is sentenced.
Before the men are sentenced, Judge Stein still must rule on their requests for a new trial stemming from a dispute over jurors’ access to certain pieces of evidence.
Prosecutors disclosed in November that a computer jurors were given to review hundreds of texts and emails introduced as evidence held a small number of messages that had been incompletely redacted.
“In light of this serious breach, a new trial is unavoidable, despite all of the hard work and resources that went into the first one,” Mr. Weitzman and Mr. Fee argued in a court filing. “Without doubting that the error was unintentional, the responsibility for it lies exclusively with the government, and the government must accept its consequences.”
Prosecutors have noted that the jury’s verdict was swift and resounding and have opposed the defense motions for a new trial.
On Friday, Mr. Lustberg, Mr. Hana’s lawyer, said in an email that no sentence should be served “until the merits of this unfair conviction are fully aired and decided on appeal.”
“This includes,” he added, “the fact that evidence that was not admitted at trial was provided to the jury.”
Mr. de Castro, the attorney for Mr. Daibes, did say that he was pleased that prosecutors, in their recommendations, recognized that his client was the “least culpable and that his generosity and selfless acts and dedication to his Edgewater, N.J., community are deserving of recognition and credit.”
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years. More about Tracey Tully
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly. More about Benjamin Weiser
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