Ex-senator’s wife, sentenced to 4.5 years in prison

The wife of former US Senator Robert Meendez was sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison for helping her husband in a bribery scheme, which participated piles of cash, gold bars and Mercedes-Benz.

The 58 -year -old Nadin Menerdes was sentenced to 15 points in April, including bribery, after the jury found that she acted as a pipeline for her husband and Egyptian officials, transmitting messages and organizing meetings.

“I put my life in my hands and he struck me with a doll,” she said, sobbing before the sentence on Thursday.

Her husband was sentenced last year and sentenced to 11 years for this scheme, which also led to his political fall. The prosecutor’s office described it as necessary for the plot.

On Thursday morning, Meendees cried when she addressed the judge.

“Now I know he is not my savior. He’s not the person I thought he was,” she said a judge who refers to her husband, reporter NY Daily News in a court located on X.

“He was one of the most powerful men in the most powerful country on earth, and it was not possible to get lost or made me do anything illegal, or I thought.”

At the time of Robert Menendez’s scheme, the most high -ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Committee, a powerful role that gave him a significant impact on the US foreign policy.

Prosecutors said the couple used their position to secretly help the interests of the Egyptian government in Washington. They sought punishment for at least seven years for Ms. Meendees.

District Judge Sidney N Stein instead sentenced her to 54 months, saying that the prison sentence was important for other people’s scare away from the possibility of committing such crimes.

“People need to understand that there are consequences,” said Judge Stein.

The judge decided that the Menendez would not have to start serving the next summer, on July 10, so that it could complete the necessary medical procedures before going behind bars, the Associated Press reports.

Nadine Menerdes was diagnosed with breast cancer after the initial charges, and therefore she was a court later than her husband, and after undergoing surgery. She wore a face mask and fasten to court during a breast cancer promotion.

In 2022, the FBI search for more than 100,000 dollars (80,000 pounds) of gold bars and hundreds of thousands of cash in envelopes or hidden in clothes.

Along with these evidence, federal prosecutors also showed text messages between the couple and their associates, as well as the search for Google for a former senator with the question: “How much is one kilogram of gold?”.

Fred Dabez, a real estate developer in New Jersey, and Walesa Khan, who was born in the Egyptian Certification Certification Operator, was also accused and convicted of his roles.

The insurance broker Jose URIbe pleaded guilty in March 2024 on charges of a corrupt scheme.