Federal prosecutors are asking that convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez spend 15 years behind bars, according to a court document filed on Thursday, after exchanging official favors for bribes in a sweeping corruption case that spanned two continents.
In a sentencing memo, prosecutors asked a Manhattan federal judge to give Menendez the time for his starring role in a “bribery and foreign influence scheme of rare gravity.” Menendez previously served as the powerful chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, and had been in the chamber since 2006.
“This case is the first ever in which a senator has been convicted of a crime involving the abuse of a leadership position on a Senate committee,” wrote prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. “It is the first ever in which a senator — or any other person — has been convicted of serving as a foreign agent while being a public official.”
Attorneys for Menendez did not immediately return a request for comment.
Menendez, 71, was convicted on all 16 counts last summer in a wide-ranging corruption case that rocked New Jersey's Democratic establishment. Prosecutors accused the state’s senior senator of trading political favors for extravagant bribes — from gold bars to a Mercedes-Benz convertible — for himself and his wife.
Menendez, in turn, divulged sensitive information to the Egyptian government and fast-tracked financial assistance and military equipment sales that benefited the country, according to his conviction.
“Menendez’s provision of information to and advocacy on behalf of a foreign government — and indeed the provision of information to the intelligence service of a foreign government with a controversial human rights record — were an extraordinary betrayal of the public trust,” prosecutors wrote.
Menendez resigned from office last August, a month after his conviction in Manhattan federal court. His lawyers have said they will appeal.
