Jan. 29 (UPI) — Bob Menendez faces a lengthy prison stay on Wednesday when he arrives in federal court for sentencing after a jury found him guilty on 16 counts connected with acting as a foreign agent.
Prosecutors are recommending to U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein, that Menendez, the 71-year-old former Democratic Senator for New Jersy, spend 15 years in prison for what it called “naked greed” for abuse of power in his Senate office where he took bribes from gold bars, luxury vehicles, and other items.
Sentencing guidelines suggest that Menendez serve 24 to 30 years in prison while the U.S. Probation Office calls for 12 years in prison. Menendez, who was charged before resigning, became the first sitting member of Congress to be convicted of acting for a foreign agent.
Menendez’s attorneys said such sentences essentially become a death sentence for the former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Senator Menendez has suffered extreme public shame and upheaval, and his finances and reputation are destroyed, likely for the rest of his life,” his attorneys said in court filings. “He is the butt of late-night talk show jokes, and his name will live in infamy as the first politician in history to be convicted of being a foreign agent.”
Prosecutors, though, said Menendez’s crimes are so serious and brazen that they require a prison sentence.
“Very few senators have even been convicted of any criminal offense, and those, most of the senators engaging in bribery accepted amounts that are a fraction of what Menendez reap,” prosecutors said in its sentencing memo.
“Serving in the Senate should have been its own reward. If Menendez was not corrupt, it would have been. It is not something Menendez needs to be rewarded for at all.”
