Former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez left Federal Court in New York with his wife Nadine after pleading not guilty on bribery and extortion charges in 2023. Both werre convicted, and Nadine Menendez faces sentencing Thursday. Bob Menendez is serving 11 years. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Nadine Menendez, wife of convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez, is scheduled for sentencing Thursday for her part in the bribery and foreign influence scheme.
The sentencing of Nadine Menendez, 58, will take place in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York courtroom in Manhattan, where her husband was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in January. She was convicted in April.
Nadine Menendez “did not commit bribery reluctantly, fleetingly or on a small scale,” federal prosecutors told U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein.
“She did so eagerly, for years, and in a scheme implicating foreign relations, national security and the integrity of state and federal law enforcement,” they argued.
An FBI search of the couple’s home found more than $480,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes and hidden around the house, along with gold bars and $70,000 in Nadine Menendez’s safe deposit box, CBS News reported.
“The defendant engaged, for years, in a corruption and foreign influence scheme of stunning brazenness, breadth and duration, resulting in exceptionally grave abuses of power at the highest levels of the legislative branch of the United States government,” prosecutors argued.
Her attorneys seek a sentence of one year and one day due to breast cancer treatment.
They said she can’t receive adequate care while in prison and sought leniency due to her growing up in war-torn Lebanon, enduring gender-based violence and having cancer.
The Menendezes were married five years ago, after a romance that began in 2018, not long after Bob Menendez had walked away from unrelated federal bribery charges in New Jersey. A jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, and prosecutors dropped the case.
In a letter Bob Menendez, 71, wrote from prison to the judge, he said his wife had suffered a lifetime of trauma and was “often taken advantage of,” The New York Times reported.
“Even with the best intentions, sometimes you just have to say no,” he wrote. “She found that hard to do.”
