Menendez’s spokesman, Joshua Natori, declined to comment.
A jury in Manhattan federal court found the senator guilty of 16 felony counts, including bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt.
In a wide-ranging bribery conspiracy case, prosecutors have laid out how the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee traded political influence for gold bars, stacks of cash and cars to support three local businessmen. In overlapping bribery charges, the 70-year-old is accused of passing unclassified but “sensitive” inside information to Egyptian intelligence officials, attempting to obstruct a local criminal investigation and securing overseas deals for the businessmen who bribed him.
Two New Jersey businessmen, Fred Dibes and Egyptian-American Wael “Will” Hana, were also convicted along with him for allegedly giving bribes. The senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was also indicted but no trial date has been set as she is undergoing treatment for advanced breast cancer. The senator’s defense team has portrayed Menendez as the secret mastermind of the scandal.
His planned resignation came after calls for him to step down immediately from Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D-New Jersey) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Menendez, who did not testify in his own defense, is scheduled to be sentenced on October 29. He has said he plans to appeal and believes he will prevail. He could face decades in prison.
“I have never violated my public oath. I am nothing but a patriot dedicated to my country and my motherland,” he said outside the courthouse. “I am convinced that the law and facts did not support the sentence and I believe we will prevail on appeal.”
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said after the guilty verdict that the case was about a “shocking level of corruption” that undermined public trust.
Menendez has had a long and distinguished career in New Jersey politics, first elected to the Union City School Board in 1974, just two years after graduating from high school, before rising to become a State Senator and U.S. Representative, and then appointed to a vacant Senate seat in 2006. During his nearly two decades in the Legislature, Menendez wielded great influence, helping to write the Affordable Care Act and chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Despite his influence, Menendez is no stranger to controversy.
Shortly after his appointment to the Senate, an ethics complaint alleging misuse of federal grant funds in 2006 led to a federal investigation. No charges were filed. Then, just days before his reelection in 2012, allegations emerged that the senator had slept with an underage prostitute while out of the country. The FBI did not substantiate these allegations, but they continued to plague Menendez’s career and he appeared in attack ads for his Republican opponent during his 2018 reelection campaign.
In 2015, Senator Menendez was indicted on charges of conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud after the government accused him of accepting airfare, vacations and campaign contributions from wealthy donors in exchange for political favors – charges he strongly denies.
“I started my career as a civil servant fighting government corruption,” he said. “That’s where my career began, and today is not the end of my career.”
The trial ended with a deadlocked jury, and the Justice Department declined to retry Menendez.
After his indictment last year, Menendez gave up on seeking the Democratic nomination and a fourth term in the 2024 election, opting to run as an independent. Democratic Rep. Andy Kim won the party’s nomination after New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy called off Menendez’s fierce campaign for the Senate. The primary fundamentally changed New Jersey politics, with a federal judge invalidating the state’s unique way of putting county-endorsed candidates on the ballot after Kim and two other Democrats running for Congress sued, arguing the ballot was unfair and unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi sided with Kim and the other plaintiffs, saying a system of “bracketing” county-endorsed candidates gave them an unfair advantage over their challengers. The ruling forced New Jersey to rewrite the ballot ahead of the June primary.
“Candidates who are not bracketed tend to occupy a less prominent portion of the ballot, appear less important, are harder to find and may be lumped together with other candidates with whom one does not wish to be,” Judge Quraishi wrote in a 49-page ruling in March.
Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.