The former Senator Robert Menendez sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribery charges

A US court sentenced former Democratic Senator Robert Menendez to 11 years in prison on Wednesday after he was convicted of corruption following the discovery of gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in his home, US media reported.

Menendez, 71, of New Jersey, was charged with racketeering, obstruction of justice and accepting bribes to provide services to businessmen with ties to Egypt and Qatar.

Menendez resigned from the Senate in August and announced he would not run again as an independent.

“At some point in your career, you lost your way,” New York federal judge Sidney Stein said.

Sentencing him to 11 years in prison for corruption, the judge criticized Menendez, a former influential lawmaker on the right wing of the Democratic Party and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying, “Working for the public interest has become working for your own benefit”.

On July 16, he was convicted in Manhattan federal criminal court on 16 counts of bribery, including conspiracy to commit corruption, conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, and obstruction of justice.

Menendez granted concessions to three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for money and used his political influence to benefit Egypt and Qatar.

The court denounced appalling levels of corruption, with bribes of hundreds of thousands of dollars, including gold, cash and a Mercedes-Benz.

Menendez appealed the conviction in July.

“I am asking you to be lenient, not for me, but for Antony,” his autistic son, he said in tears.