July 16 (UPI) — Jurors on Tuesday returned guilty verdicts on all 16 counts related to bribery and corruption against New Jersey’s U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who could be sentenced to decades in federal prison.
The jury of six men and six women in the federal Southern District of New York court in Manhattan rendered the guilty verdicts after two days of deliberation.
Prosecutors charged Menendez, 70, with 16 counts of bribery, extortion, acting as a foreign agent, obstruction of justice and conspiracy while he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2021 until resigning his chairmanship after being charged with felonies in September.
Menendez, 70, said he’ll appeal the verdict and has a sentencing hearing scheduled for Oct. 29.
Menendez was charged with 16 counts in total for bribery, extortion and acting as an illegal foreign agent in connection to an alleged scheme to collect gold bars, cash and other bribes in exchange for catering to New Jersey businessmen and the foreign governments of Egypt and Qatar.
His alleged partners in the scheme, businessman Wael Hana and real estate mogul Fred Daibes, also were convicted Tuesday on related charges.
Prosecutors accused Hana of giving Nadine Menendez a low-show job and paying off a mortgage in her name to influence the senator to help protect Hana’s halal meat certification monopoly.
Daibes was accused to bribing Menendez with cash and gold bars to praise Qatar in order to influence a Qatari sheik to invest in a property owned by Daibes.
Daibes also is charged with bank fraud related to the Menendez case and is scheduled to go to trial in that case on Oct. 22.
Hana and Daibes also have sentencing hearings scheduled for Oct. 29.
A third man, trucking and insurance businessman Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty to seven charges in exchange for cooperating with the investigators and testifying against Menendez.
Uribe has a sentencing hearing scheduled on Oct. 29 and faces up to 95 years in prison.
Prosecutors alleged Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, tried to obstruct the investigation after characterizing some of the alleged bribe payments as loans
Nadine Menendez’s trial was postponed indefinitely because she’s recovering from breast cancer surgery. Like her husband, she has pleaded not guilty.
More than $480,000 in cash was seized from their New Jersey home during a 2022 FBI raid.
Menendez explained the cash stockpile stemmed from his family’s experience in Cuba, before he was born.
He also faced federal corruption charges in 2015, but a jury failed to reach a verdict. Charges were dropped in 2018.
The senator didn’t testify in his own defense in the latest trial.
He is the 13th sitting senator in American history to be indicted while holding office and the fourth to be indicted multiple times while serving.
Menendez, who was appointed to the seat in January 2006, stepped down as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but has refused to resign.
He didn’t seek re-election in the Democratic primary this year but several weeks announced he would run as an independent.
U.S. Rep. Andy Kim won the Democratic primary.