‘Gold Bar Bob’ Menendez Sentenced to 11 Years In Prison
The former New Jersey senator was previously found guilty on charges including bribery and acting as a foreign agent.
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Former Sen. Bob Menendez, a veteran Democratic legislator who represented New Jersey from 2006 through his resignation last year, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday after being found guilty on charges of bribery and acting as an agent for a foreign government. Menendez, 71, earned the nickname “Gold Bar Bob” after a 2023 federal indictment revealed that FBI agents seized about $100,000 of gold bars from his home. Menendez teared up while telling the court he was “far from a perfect man,” while his lawyers begged for a lenient sentence. “Despite his decades of service, he is now known more widely as gold bar Bob,” his attorney Aaron Fee said, the Associated Press reported. Judge Sidney H. Stein eventually gave the disgraced senator an 11-year prison sentence, and ordered him to forfeit over $900,000. His children, sitting Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), and MSNBC host Alicia Menendez, sat behind their father as the sentence was handed down. Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, the two businessmen convicted of bribing Menendez with the gold bars, were sentenced at a separate trial on Wednesday—receiving sentences of seven years and 97 months respectively in addition to millions in fines.
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