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The wife of former US senator Robert Menendes has been sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison to support her husband in a bribery scheme, including piles of money, gold bars and Mercedes-Benz.
The 58 -year -old Nadine Menendes was convicted in April 15, including a bribe after the jurors found that she had acted as a conductor for her husband and Egyptian officials, transmitting messages and organizing meetings.
“I put my life in his hands and he strung me like a puppet,” she told the judge, sobbing before her sentence on Thursday.
Her husband was sentenced last year and sentenced to 11 years for the scheme, which also led to his political decline. Prosecutors had defined her as a must for the plot.
On Thursday morning, Menendes cried as he turned to the judge.
“Now I know, he is not my savior. He is not the man I thought he was,” she told the judge, citing her husband, a NY Daily News reporter in court published on X.
“He was one of the most powerful men in the most powerful side of the earth and could not make me fool or make me do something illegal or so I thought.”
During the scheme, Robert Menendes was the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a powerful role that has a significant influence on the US foreign policy.
Prosecutors said the couple used his position secretly to support the interests of the Egyptian government in Washington. They had sought a sentence of at least seven years for Da Menendes.
The District Judge Sydney N Stein instead sentenced her to 54 months, saying that the prison period was important for the discouraging of others from the possible commitment of such crimes.
“People need to understand that there are consequences,” Judge Stein said.
The judge decided that Menendes would not have to start serving his sentence by next summer, July 10, so that he could complete the necessary medical procedures before heading behind bars, according to the Associated Press.
Nadine Menendes was diagnosed with breast cancer after the initial accusations, so she withstood the test later by her husband and after undergoing surgery. She wore a face mask and attached herself to the court during the proceedings to promote breast cancer awareness.
The search for the FBI of 2022 at the New Jersey couple’s home revealed gold bars worth over $ 100,000 (80,000 British pounds) and hundreds of thousands of dollars in envelopes or hidden in clothes.
Along with this evidence, federal prosecutors also showed text messages from jurors between the couple and their associates, as well as a Google search from the former senator with the question: “How much does it cost a pound of gold?”
Fred Daybes, a real estate developer in New Jersey, and Weil Hannah, the Egyptian native operator of Halal Certification Company, were also accused and convicted of their roles.
The insurance broker Jose Uribe pleaded guilty in March 2024 on accusations related to the corrupt scheme.
