NEW JERSEY — Former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison Wednesday after being convicted of 16 felony counts in a high-profile bribery scheme.
Last July, the Hudson County Democrat was convicted of accepting bribes, using the power of his office to protect allies from prosecution, and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. He resigned from the Senate in August, after months of maintaining his innocence and resisting calls from other top Democrats to step down.
Menendez, 71, fought through tears as he asked U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein for leniency in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday.
“You really don’t know the man you are about to sentence,” Menendez said, before going in to a list of accomplishments from his decades in public service.
Prosecutors had asked the judge for a 15-year sentence. Lawyers for the longtime senator asked for no more than an eight-year sentence on Wednesday.
Attorney Adam Fee told Stein to give Menendez credit for a “lifetime of extraordinary public service and personal sacrifices.”
“Despite his decades of service, he is now known more widely as ‘gold bar Bob,'” Fee said.
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