Menendez to begin 11-year federal prison sentence in Pennsylvania for corruption conviction

Former Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is set to begin his 11-year federal prison sentence in Pennsylvania for his corruption conviction.

Menendez will be a prisoner at Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill in Minersville, Pa., starting Tuesday, The New York Times reported. He is currently appealing his conviction, but on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit denied his request for bail, which would have delayed his sentence pending the outcome of his appeal.

The former senator was convicted last July on all 16 counts in his federal corruption case, including obstruction of justice, bribery, extortion, wire fraud, and acting as a foreign agent.

The case centered on allegations that Menendez and his wife, Nadine, accepted bribes in exchange for acting to benefit the governments in Egypt and Qatar when he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Prosecutors in the case alleged he and his wife were paid with gold bars and cash, which were found during a raid of the senator's home in 2022. Many of the gold bars and cash were found “stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,” according to the indictment.

Nadine Menendez is expected to be sentenced in September.

The former senator's lawyers said in a court filing that an 11-year prison sentence is a death sentence for the 71-year-old.

“It is well-recognized that inmates with a degree of celebrity are at increased risk of attention, harassment and violence from their fellow inmates,” they wrote in a court filing.

A U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman said that information about a prisoner’s housing assignment would not be released “until after an individual arrives at his or her destination.”

Anonymous sources told the Times that Menendez's housing assignment is expected to be a 225-man camp in the complex, where prisoners sleep in dormitory-style rooms, often in bunk beds.

Menendez has claimed he is innocent and is seeking a pardon from President Trump.

On Wednesday, the former senator posted on X, "Prosecutors broke the law to make sure they convicted me, by loading unconstitutional evidence onto a laptop they gave to the jury. The illegal evidence, that the Judge had ruled inadmissible, violated the Congressional immunity clause of the Constitution."