On Wednesday, former American Senator Bob Mindez was sentenced to 11 years in prison for giving bribes of gold, criticism and work as an agent for Egypt – that the crimes said his lawyer said that his lawyer won him the title of “Bar Gold Bob”.
American boycott judge, Sydney E. Stein was about the ruling after he addressed the democratic tears, saying that he lost everything he cares about, with the exception of his family.
The judge said: “I was successful and strong, and I stood at the top of our political system.” “Somewhere all the way, and I do not know when it was, I lost your way and working for the public good is working for your interest.”
The judge said that the actions of Mindez were nourishing the voters.
“What is the result?” He said, referring to a lengthy investigation of a five -year crime. “You have lost your Senate seat. You have lost your presidency and lost your good name.”
Mainendez, 71, who told the court to be tears, was defying when he entered in front of Cameras on the bank of the microphones outside the Manhattan Court, saying: “I am innocent.”
Then he criticized the judicial system and was compatible with President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the judicial system, especially in New York City.
President Trump is right. This process is political and damaged to the core. He said: “I hope that President Trump will clean Cyspel and restore integrity to the regime,” and he reads from a paper and calls itself a victim of “the West of the West from political judicial prosecutions.”
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Prosecutors have requested a 15 -year prison sentence for Mindez, who was convicted of multiple charges, including the work as an agent for Egypt to sell in his influence that was in Washington, which was in Washington worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Looking at an opportunity to speak in court, Mindez collapsed several times as he described his accomplishments.
“You really don’t know the man you are about to judge,” Mindez told Stein as standing in front of him in his hands in his pockets.
“Your honor, I am far from a perfect man. I have taken more than my share of bad errors and decisions.” “I have done well more than bad. I ask you, your honor, to judge me in this context.”
Lawyer Adam Fall Stein told Mindez to give the credit for “lifetime from extraordinary public service and personal sacrifices.”
“Despite his contracts of his service, he is now widely known as Gold Bar Bob,” said Fee.
Mainndez’s lawyers said before the verdict that their client deserves less than two years in prison, describing how the Cuban immigrant son had risen from poverty to become an “American dream” example before his “condemnation” made him a “national line”. “
It has been hit once before.
In 2015, he was charged with selling his influence on the wealthy doctor in Florida and the businessman who was said by the prosecutors, who told him luxurious leave and contributions to the campaign. But the jury in this case could not reach a unanimous judgment. Federal prosecutors dropped the case instead of managing it again.
Before the ruling on Mindez, Stein’s sentences of two men were convicted of the bribes of Mindez, which gave Farid Dibs, a real estate developer, a seven -year prison sentence and Will Hana, a businessman, eight years behind bars.
Before announcing his sentence, Dibs, 67, told Stein that the jury had left him “border suicide” and asked to be lenient so that he could take care of his 30 -year -old autistic son.
Hana told the judge, “I am an innocent man.”
A third businessman acknowledged that he was guilty and witnessed against Mindez in the trial of last year.
Mindez resigned from the Senate after his conviction last year, although he lost a lot of his authority in the fall of 2023 when the charges against him were revealed and had to hand over his strong position as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The trial followed the Manendez dealings with Egyptian officials and seeking to help three men who shot him with profitable gifts that were found during the 2022 raid on Englo Clavs, New Jersey, participated with his wife Nadine. His wife faces a trial in March on many of the same charges that her husband receives.
The FBI agents who searched the house found $ 480,000, some are stuffed inside the shoes and pockets of hanging clothes in the couple’s cabinets. They also seized gold bars worth $ 150,000.
Prosecutors said that Mindez “put his high office for sale in exchange for this biopsy of bribes”, including by serving the interests of Egypt because he was working to protect the meat meat certificate that Hana created with the Egyptian government.
Among other things, MENENDEZ provided Egyptian officials information about employees at the American embassy in Cairo and writes a letter to their colleagues in the Senate members encouraging them to raise $ 300 million of military aid to Egypt.
The prosecutors said that for other bribes, Mendendez tried to persuade the Federal Public Prosecutor in New Jersey to steal Debs, a political, influential real estate developer accused of bank fraud.
In the trial, another businessman, Jose Orepe, witnessed that he helped Nadine Mindez obtained the Mercedes -Benz, after Senator sought to pressure the state prosecutors to drop criminal investigations from his partners.
Mindez insisted that he is innocent of any crime, saying repeatedly that his interactions with Egyptian officials were normal for the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, and that he always puts American interests first. He denied taking any bribes and said that the gold bars belong to his wife.
In the papers of the court, Mindez’s lawyers described how Menendez devoted a lot of his life to his country and society after he was exposed to a scar due to the early loss of his father, who killed himself when Mindez was twenty -three years old after he was unable to pay the debts of gambling.
They described a 50 -year date of public service in heroic phrases, following a profession in which Manendez was the mayen City mayor, New Jersey, the deputy state, a member of the US House of Representatives, then a member of the Senate from 2006 to 2024.
