OAN Staff Abril Elfi
2:04 PM – Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Former Senator Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison following his bribery trial.
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On Wednesday, Judge Sidney Stein sentenced Menendez to 11 years behind bars after he had been convicted on July 24th, 2024 on 16 counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
His co-defendants, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, were also sentenced to 8 years and 7 years respectively.
Prosecutors had requested that the former Democrat Senator receives 15 years in prison.
“As proven at trial, the defendants 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 wrote.
The indictment stated that in August of 2021, Menendez sent a press release in which he praised the Qatari government, sending the text message: “You might want to send it to them. I am just about to release.”
The following month, his accomplice Fred Daibes texted Menendez pictures of expensive watches that reportedly costed up to $23,990, after he had attended a private event in Manhattan hosted by the Qatari government.
Two days later, Menendez texted Daibes a message with a website link that tracked a resolution in the Senate that supported Qatar.
According to the indictment, in January 2022, the senator messaged the Qatari investor ahead of his meeting with Daibes to discuss potential investments, saying: “I understand my friend is going to visit with you on the 15th of the month. I hope that this will result in the favorable and mutually beneficial agreement that you have been both engaged in discussing.”
In May, the Qatari official gave four tickets to the 2022 Formula One Grand Prix to a close relative of Nadine Menendez, at the senator’s request.
The Qatari investment fund signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture with Daibes’s company that same month, after a meeting between the senator, Daibes, and the two Qatari officials. Later, the indictment stated that Daibes “gave Menendez a gold bar.”
The Qatari Investment Company officially joined Daibes last year by investing tens of millions of dollars.
The senator was found guilty of failing to disclose this information on his financial forms. There was no mention of the gifts, gold bars, and race tickets that he received from Qatar and Daibes.
“Menendez, who swore an oath to represent the United States and the state of New Jersey, instead put his high office up for sale in exchange for this hoard of bribes,” prosecutors wrote ahead of the sentencing.
Menendez is the first U.S. Senator in American history to be convicted of working as a foreign agent.
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