Wife of ex-Dem Sen Menendez sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for couple's bribery scheme

Ex-Sen. Bob Menendez's wife was sentenced on Thursday to 4.5 years in prison for her role in a bribery scheme with her husband.

Nadine Menendez, 58, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein after her conviction in April of colluding from 2018 to 2023 with her husband, the former Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in multiple corruption schemes, including assisting the Egyptian government, The according to the Associated Press. 

Before she was sentenced, Nadine Menendez sobbed before Stein, calling her husband a manipulative liar.

“I put my life in his hands and he strung my [sic] like a puppet,” she said. “The blindfold is off. I now know he’s not my savior. He’s not the man I thought he was.”

Nadine Menendez partly blamed her husband, claiming to have been duped by his power and stature, and that she felt compelled to do whatever he wanted, including calling or meeting with certain people.

“I would never have imagined someone of his ranking putting me in this position,” she said, but acknowledged that, in retrospect, she was a grown woman and should have known better.

Stein told Menendez that during the trial last year for her husband and two New Jersey businessmen also involved in the schemes they painted her as “manipulative, hungry for money and the true force behind the conspiracies.”

Stein also said she wasn’t the “innocent observer of what was happening around you,” as her lawyer portrayed her at her trial.

“You knew what you were doing. Your role was purposeful,” he said.

Before the hearing, Bob Menendez submitted a letter to the judge saying he regretted that he didn’t fully preview his lawyer's comments about his wife during his trial and in closing arguments.

“To suggest that Nadine was money hungry or in financial need, and therefore would solicit others for help, is simply wrong,” he wrote.

In addition to the 4.5 years in prison, Stein sentenced Nadine Menendez to three years of supervised release. He said he granted her leniency partly because of the trial she endured, her difficult childhood in Lebanon, her abusive romantic partners, her health conditions, and her age.

The prison sentence was for general deterrence purposes, Stein said: “People have to understand there are consequences.”

She does not have to report to prison until July 10, 2026, accommodating a request from her defense team that she be allowed to remain free to complete necessary medical procedures before she's incarcerated. Federal prosecutors did not object to the lawyers' request, but they had sought a prison sentence of at least seven years.

Nadine Menendez's lawyer, Sarah Krissoff, requested that she serve only a year behind bars, due to her difficult recovery from breast cancer, which was diagnosed just before last year’s trial.

Her husband, who is 71, is serving an 11-year prison sentence after being convicted of taking bribes, extortion, and acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.

Prosecutors argued that Nadine Menendez played a large and crucial role in her husband’s crimes, being an intermediary between him and three New Jersey businessmen who gave him tens of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for favors he could deliver with his political influence.

The FBI raided the Menendez home in New Jersey in 2022, finding $480,000 in cash, gold bars worth approximately $150,000, and a luxury convertible in the garage.

According to prosecutors, Bob Menendez met with Egyptian intelligence officials and assisted with Egypt’s access to U.S. military aid as part of an effort to help his bribe-paying associates, one of whom had business dealings with that country's government.