Former United States Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is seeking a delay on his prison sentence, following his conviction on bribery charges.
As the New York Post reports, Menendez’s lawyers begged Judge Stanley Stein to keep the disgraced former lawmaker out of jail during the appeals process, describing him as a “septuagenarian who devoted half a century to public service.”
“A lifelong public servant should not be forced to wait out such an appeal from the walls of a federal facility,” said Adam Fee and Avi Weitzman, Menendez’s lawyers.
Menendez resigned in August after he was convicted of receiving gold bars, among other gifts, from foreign governments such as Egypt and Qatar. He had initially remained defiant, announcing his intentions to run for re-election in 2024, and at one point even switched from the Democratic Party to Independent, before finally withdrawing from the race and resigning from the Senate.
Menendez is to be sentenced on Wednesday, at 2 PM. Prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York have recommended that the former senator be sentenced to at least 15 years in prison. Menendez’s lawyers, by contrast, have asked for no more than two years.
His lawyers have claimed that he is already a “worldwide disgrace” and “national punchline,” which they claim is sufficient punishment for his crimes. The prosecutors have instead pointed out that the harsher sentence would match his “naked greed” and “hoard of bribes.”
Menendez was the first member of Congress in American history to be convicted of the crime of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. Following his resignation, Congressman Andy Kim (D-N.J.) was elected to succeed him in the Senate.
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